The PCL Asia Rising Stars is the official U-19 youth championship of the Pickleball Champions League, Asia's premier pro pickleball league. Its purpose is to identify the region's most promising junior players, immerse them in a world-class pickleball environment, and show them the possibilities. This year’s five-day Grand Finals took place in Hainan, China, from April 1 to April 5, 2026, and quickly turned into something none of the organizers expected.

Pro Training and Preparation

The event began on March 31 with the arrival of players from nine countries, including the Philippines, Malaysia, China, and India. They were housed at the Holiday Inn Resort Qionghai Guantang, where the natural hot springs quickly became a favored spot for winding down after long days on the pickleball court.

The first two days were dedicated to Pro Training. The U-19 athletes had the opportunity to work directly with top touring pickleball professionals like James Ignatowich and Dionne Lim. They also toured the tournament venue, the Beijing Haidian Foreign Language School, Hainan Campus, which is set to become the future home of the Asia Elite Pickleball Academy (AEPA). The training days concluded with a welcome beach dinner, allowing players, coaches, and staff from every country to connect before the competition began.

Intense Competition and Grand Finals Results

Competition began on April 3 with the Round Robin, which established the seeding for the knockout rounds. The following two days featured intense knockout pickleball, officiated to international professional standards. Team Kuala Lumpur proved dominant, defeating Team Surabaya in three straight games to claim the title: 21–16, 21–8, 21–17.

AEPA Scholarships and Future Development

The victory secured automatic AEPA Scholarships for the four pickleball players of Team Kuala Lumpur: Lynn Lim, Irfan Kamil, Chan Yu Chi, and Farreez Isqandar. These scholarships provide access to elite training and development resources at one of Asia's most ambitious pickleball academies. To help track the development of these emerging athletes and their official pickleball rating, all matches were tracked on DUPR. In addition to the winners, sponsors and coaches recognized 7 additional standout players who showed exceptional skill, heart, and potential, bringing the total number of AEPA Scholars to eleven.

Beyond the Competition: Friendships Built in Hainan

Here’s the thing about Rising Stars that nobody tells you until you’ve lived it: the competition is the easy part to describe. The medals, the scores, the scholarships: those go on a page.

What goes in your chest is watching kids who arrived as strangers, separated by language, flag, and a bracket that pitted them against each other, become friends over the course of the week. Players across nine countries are still in touch, still cheering each other on from afar, still carrying what they built in Hainan into whatever comes next.

They came to Hainan as competitors. They left as each other's people. Friendship built from pickleball competition.