Highlights From The Siam Skechers Pickleball Tournament
The Siam Skechers Open Pickleball Championships took place over a long weekend from 7th to 9th December 2024.
The action happened at Beat Discovery Bangkok a new venue which showcases just how pickleball facilities are growing in number and quality.
More than 400 competitors assembled from around Asia, Australia and beyond for what turned out to be a truly international competition.
Speaking to Jason Brown, Managing Director at Plaer – one of the tournament sponsors, he told PNA how he is seeing the adoption of pickleball increase across countries like Vietnam and Malaysia at an incredible pace, and despite being a Thai-based company, he is seeing the traction in these countries equal or even exceed what he has experienced in Thailand.
From PNA’s perspective, this event was a great “marker” for top players from Southeast Asian countries to pit themselves against international rivals and get an idea of what standard they are reaching. Players who regularly dominate in their own country’s local tournaments were able to see if they needed to step up when they reached international level. For a sport that is rapidly growing and is “discovering itself” daily, these kind of opportunities to level set is vital for players and countries that want to “up their games”
At the moment, in pickleball across Asia, we are still at a time where players’ love of the game is driving the organisation and progress of the sport. Many of the people who give up their time to organise this event (and others like it) are also people who play in the tournaments. One such person is Kamonthip Tachasakulmas, who, in between helping people find their courts to play, organising medal ceremonies and even refereeing matches, was able to squeeze in several podium positions herself, including silver medals in the women’s open 50+ singles and doubles.
This feeling of “all rolling up our sleeves” permeates the atmosphere at major Asian pickleball events such as this.
A lot happened over the three days of competition but the PNA highlighted top three picks are as follows.
Pick Number 1 – The performance of Lien Truong
Vietnam’s 50-something pickleball leading lady showed us just why she is able to strike gold so often. Picking up podiums in younger age categories, it was the women’s 50+ doubles open where Lien really impressed us. Playing with solid partner Jeannette Ward from Australia, Lien was the dominant force across all four players in the final, showing the kind of court coverage a super fit 19-year-old would be proud of!
Pick Number 2 – The March of The Malaysians
If you go back a couple of years to when the pickleball boom started to ignite in South Asia, Malaysia was undoubtedly behind the curve, struggling to keep up with play levels seen in Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, etc.
We know the bug has hit Malaysia big time, and that was made evident when we looked at the men’s 19+ intermediate category. This category allows up-and-coming teams to showcase their talent, and clearly, Malaysia has many up-and-coming teams, taking all three podium positions and fourth place in the category.
Here are the Malaysian players who dominated the up-and-coming category in men’s doubles 19+
Gold – Raymond Fong & Chew Eu Chuan
Silver – Tze Hwa Teo & Jian Tat Wong
Bronze – Marcus Low & Perry Kuan
4th Place – Brandan Lai & Raflis Muhamed
Pick Number 3 – Triple Crown Winner Wasan Komonrattana
The elite category in any tournament is the 19+ open, and Thai player Wasan Komonrattana was able to bad three golds in across
Men’s Single Open 19+
Men’s Doubles Open 19+
Mixed Doubles Open 19+
Clearly Wasan is someone we all need to be watching as we start to see who the movers and shakers across Asia will be in 2025
All The Results from Siam Skechers Pickleball Tournament 2024
Click here to see the results in detail
