Macao Takes a Gamble on Pickleball With The Opening of the Soar Sports Centre
Macao’s first pickleball court at the The Soar Sports Centre opened on Saturday at the Fisherman’s Wharf.
For pickle-ballers travelling to Macao for work or pleasure, you now have a new activity to vie for your time and keep you away from the casinos.
It seems that for co-founder Marcus Leung there has been a huge amount of time and effort in making it a reality to bring Pickleball to Macau. He explained in an interview with Macao News that “It took over hundreds of meetings, but we finally did it. It felt unbelievable because we picked up the sport in November and now we have our very first court in Macao. We hope to inspire more people to join our community,”
It’s seems Leung was inspired to bring pickleball to Macao base on his own recently developed love for the sport. Like many who venture into pickleball, Leung comes from a tennis background, but he has been very successful in turning those skills to this new sport, even registering a win over one of Asia’s top pickleballers, Taiwan’s Neilson Chen.
At Pickleball News Asia, we are seeing players new to the game, realise that demand for courts is quickly outstripping supply, and the bug grips them so much that they answer the problem by building courts for themselves. We saw the same in Malaysia with Rueben Nah and friend who recently opened a six indoor courts at the Dink-It ! facility.
it looks like the Leung has caught the pickleball bug bad, and answered the call for courts by opening one for himself!
While pickleball is still in its early stages in the SAR, we still see excellent performances from players in the region in international tournaments. Including the recent Asia Open Pickleball Championships. In addition the sport is taking off in mainland China.
When speaking to Macao News Leung explained that China hosts pickleball games every week and that it’s “a lot crazier than anybody would have thought of.”
He and his partners are aiming to stimulate the same level of excitement in the SAR and emulate similar levels of competitions and events as are currently being seen in China.
