Collin Johns has been busy. Recent off successful the Males’s Doubles title on the PPA Kuala Lumpur Open, the internationally famend skilled stepped off the aggressive court docket and straight into the classroom—serving as International Technical Director for the RacketPro APAC Pickleball Tour 2026, a sweeping regional teaching initiative that has already lower via Malaysia and has Vietnam, Japan, and Singapore in its sights.
The tour is the brainchild of RPO—RacketPro Group—a globally recognised coach training physique that has constructed a repute because the gold commonplace in worldwide pickleball certification. The APAC version covers Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, with the purpose of elevating teaching requirements, aggressive growth, and group progress throughout the area. It’s, by RPO’s personal reckoning, one in every of its largest regional growth initiatives within the Asia-Pacific up to now.
Malaysia was the primary cease—and it delivered.
The Malaysia leg ran from Might 14 to Might 24, touching Setia Alam, Penang, Sarawak, Sabah, and culminating in a landmark Kuala Lumpur MEGA RPO Degree 1 Workshop—the primary of its variety within the area. The tour wove collectively skilled coaching, coach certification, profession development, and group constructing throughout 5 cities in beneath two weeks, and the response exceeded expectations.
RPO APAC managing director Connor Nguyen got here away impressed.
“It has been a tremendous tour for us,” Nguyen stated. “The amenities we noticed right here had been simply high-class. And the dedication and dedication that now we have seen is solely superb. I imagine, on this area, Vietnam and Malaysia are very far forward of the others in the case of the next and growth of the sport.”
Collin Johns echoed the sentiment—and went additional.
“The setup is superb, and they’re additionally pushing for a lot of coaches to information the gamers,” he stated. “That may positively elevate their gamers’ efficiency in tournaments. Pickleball is rising very quick on the earth, and I imagine nations like Malaysia and Vietnam will play a really large half within the sport.”
Each males additionally flagged what they see as pickleball’s final vacation spot: the Olympics. Nguyen stated the game’s prime officers are already transferring in that path—and the work being finished throughout Asia is a part of constructing the muse that makes that case.
The tour is constructed round RPO’s COEBRA Depth Program, which centres on an “Alpha Agile” mindset—equipping coaches not simply with technical expertise however with management functionality, decisive considering, and the long-term imaginative and prescient to develop the game sustainably of their dwelling nations. As a part of the initiative, RPO will conduct an intensive four-week COEBRA program in Vietnam, drawing coaches from a number of nations for high-level coaching.
The Malaysia MEGA Workshop additionally hosted an Alumni Gathering—a deliberate effort to maintain the teaching group related and rising past the preliminary certification.
“This isn’t our first alumni gathering in Kuala Lumpur,” the organisers stated. “Following the first-ever Mega Workshop, this gathering demonstrates that we not solely practice and onboard new members, but additionally proceed to assist and develop alongside our current group.”
The tour’s educator lineup was led by Johns and Nguyen, alongside RPO COEBRA coach and clinician Aron Ong, who specialises in aggressive participant growth and high-efficiency teaching methodologies. Nguyen himself brings uncommon credentials to the position—he beforehand based Vietnam’s first skilled basketball group, the Saigon Warmth, and launched the Vietnam Basketball Affiliation earlier than turning his focus to pickleball growth throughout APAC.
The highway forward is full. The Vietnam leg—masking Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, and Da Nang—is about for June, adopted by Japan in July throughout Tokyo and Osaka, and Singapore additionally in July.
Malaysia has set the usual. The remainder of Asia is subsequent.
