Pickleball Global Academy Athletes score third place in inaugural MiLP Guangzhou

Pickleball Global Academy athletes sponsored by SHOT3 formed by Jerry Lo, Colin Pan, Qira Lu and Vivi Qin did the academy proud today by emerging third in the inaugural teams tournament held in Guangzhou.

With the tournament starting at 2pm and lasting until 9pm, all teams were tested and stretched to their breaking point and the SHOT3 team came close to reaching the semi-finals after narrowly losing to the current top players in Guangzhou city.

"I am extremely proud of the team and what they have achieved. When Coach Hannah and I discussed their development plan and considered that they mostly did not have any racquet sport background, we set them on a path to discover themselves, to understand why they wanted to compete and importantly, for them to become the best versions of themselves through Pickleball. What makes us even prouder is how they maintained their sporting attitude and collected nature during all the matches even when things got tight, nerves were at breaking point and they really broke through some mental barriers today. This has always been the ethos of the Pickleball Global Academy, to achieve the best version of yourself through Pickleball and yet be able to play the game with tremendous integrity." - Darren Ho, Head Coach, Pickleball Global Academy

With the exception of Jerry Lo, the rest of the team had to start from scratch when it came to Pickleball and their exceptional hard work and dedication saw them through in the end. Colin Pan is an ex-swimmer while Vivi Qin and Qira Lu have no prior sporting background.

"When SHOT3 looks at athletes to sponsor, we don't just look at their capabilities and their technical strengths and advantages. That would actually be the easiest way to pick an athlete to work with but instead we choose athletes based on their character, values and what they can bring to the game in future as an inspiration to the community. This is more important to us as we believe that all technical expertise and skills can be taught given enough time and the right curriculum, to which we are glad to be partnered with the Pickleball Global Academy for their pedagogy that is clearly aligned with ours." - James Yong, co-founder, SHOT3

This success is also strongly attributed to assistant Head Coach, Hannah Tan who spent numerous hours with the athletes, ensuring they focused on footwork, basic fitness and technical play.

"This goes to show that anyone can be successful in a sport as long as they are willing to put in the hours, brave the rain, sun and accept that losing and winning is all part of this amazing game called Pickleball with the right attitude and sporting integrity" - Hannah Tan, Assistant Head Coach, Pickleball Global Academy

Once again, we would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to Pickleball Global Academy athletes, Jerry Lo, Colin Pan, Qira Lu and Vivi Qin for their amazing journey and result for this tournament.