Taiwan’s Asia Elite Pickleball League (AEPL) on Monday announced that its inaugural five-team season would begin on Saturday next week in Taichung.
Teams would compete against one another through November.
At a news conference on Monday promoting the league and its first season, AEPL chief executive Chang Chih-wei said the league is in discussions with another group from Taichung that could join as a sixth team.
Photo: CNA
Chang said the league was created in response to the popularity of pickleball in Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia in the past few years.
The AEPL aims to provide high-quality, competitive professional matches, he said.
At the event, Johnny Chang, CEO of the Taoyuan Taiwan Beer Leopards in the Taiwan Professional Basketball League, spoke about forming a pickleball team within the Leopards organization.
Johnny Chang said he had selected Willy Chung as captain of the Taoyuan Leopards pickleball team.
“We had been sponsoring Willy Chung already,” Chang said. “It just so happens that we formed a pickleball team, so we decided to persuade him to captain the team.”
Johnny Chang added that Chung was given responsibility and free rein to select the team’s players.
On Leopards’ roster is 15-year-old Chiu Tsi-en, the youngest player in the AEPL.
Chiu said that she has been playing pickleball for almost a year after being introduced to the sport by a classmate.
She said she gradually fell in love with the game and plans to continue playing pickleball and tennis — which she has been playing for six years already.
Chiu said the two sports are similar in that both require strategic thinking, with the main differences being court size and whether the sports are played outdoors or indoors.
According to the league, the first two days of competition would be held on Saturday and Sunday next week at the pickleball facility in the 1908 Taichung Green Corridor near Taichung Railway Station.
The league said the season would be held at eight not-yet-finalized locations across Taiwan before the finals and would feature a prize pool of NT$1 million (US$31,304).
For next year’s season, the AEPL said that it aims to attract teams from places such as Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Macau.
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