Partners
Four organisations stand behind the coaching on this site — two that provide the structure and the courts, and two that set the standard the coaching is held to.
A coach is only as good as what stands behind him.
Anyone can print a business card that says pickleball coach. What is harder to assemble is the rest of it: somewhere proper to play, a coaching structure with a method rather than a collection of habits, and an external body willing to test whether what you teach actually holds up.
These four organisations supply those pieces. TAG International Tennis Academy provides the coaching structure and the twenty-five years of method behind it. The PickleChoo Collection provides the courts. The Professional Tennis Registry and the Professional Pickleball Registry provide the certification — and in the case of PPR, the authority under which certification is delivered here in Singapore.
Where the coaching lives.
TAG International Tennis Academy
TAG International Tennis Academy is Singapore’s longest-running tennis academy, founded in 2001 by Coach XT (Tan Xu Teng) and responsible for more than 10,000 students over two and a half decades. Its coaching roster is accredited by the Singapore Tennis Association and competes actively, and its alumni include players who have represented Singapore at the SEA Games, Davis Cup and Fed Cup. TAG operates Winchester Tennis Arena, Singapore’s first indoor tennis courts, and runs the racquet programmes at clubs including The Tanglin Club, Chinese Swimming Club, SAFRA, Home Team NS and Warren Golf & Country Club.
Coach Gary serves as Director of Pickle for the TAG International Group, which is the reason the pickleball coaching on this site does not look improvised. Lesson planning, progression pathways, coach development and the business end of packages and scheduling all sit inside a structure built for tennis and running for twenty-five years. The group’s wider programmes — private tennis lessons, kids tennis from age three, adult lessons and pickleball lessons — are set out at tagtennisacademy.sg. Pickleball is a younger sport in Singapore, but the coaching discipline applied to it here is not.
The PickleChoo Collection
The PickleChoo Collection operates three dedicated rooftop pickleball venues in Singapore: PickleChoo Arena at 11 Slim Barracks Rise in One-North, PickleChoo Prime on New Industrial Road, and PickleChoo Apex at Henderson Road. All three are rooftop courts, open daily from 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM, taking walk-ins as well as online bookings, and running community block bookings for groups that want a regular slot. My own notes on each court are on the venues page.
What matters about them is that they are purpose-built. A great deal of pickleball in Singapore is still played on badminton halls with tape on the floor or tennis courts with portable nets, where the lines are ambiguous and the run-off behind the baseline is wrong. These are correct dimensions, correct net height and a surface designed for the sport, which means what a player practises in a session transfers to what they will meet in competition. Coach Gary is Director of Pickle for the Collection and coaches private, junior, senior and group and corporate sessions across all three; court bookings go through PickleChoo, coaching enquiries come to him.
The standard the coaching is held to.
Professional Tennis Registry
The Professional Tennis Registry was founded in 1976 by the coach Dennis Van der Meer, who saw the need for a universal language and a common set of progressions for teaching tennis. It is now the largest global organisation of tennis teaching professionals, with roughly 16,000 members across more than 125 countries, headquartered in Wesley Chapel, Florida, and accredited by the United States Tennis Association. Its pathway runs from Level 1 certification through to Master of Tennis, the organisation’s highest coaching qualification.
PTR matters here for a reason that is easy to miss: the vocabulary of modern pickleball coaching was largely inherited from tennis coach education, and PTR is where a great deal of it was written. Coach Gary coaches tennis at Raffles Girls’ School and St Joseph’s Institution alongside his pickleball work, and is the official Singapore provider for PTR certification, which is why a lesson with him uses the same structure and the same checkpoints whichever racquet is in your hand. TAG’s own tennis coaching standards are built on the same certification.
Professional Pickleball Registry
The Professional Pickleball Registry is PTR’s pickleball arm and the official education and certification partner of USA Pickleball. Since its launch in 2018 it has grown into the largest international organisation of certified pickleball coaches, with more than 15,000 members, a curriculum originally designed by five-time national champion Sarah Ansboury, a Level 1 and Level 2 pathway, and DUPR adopted across its programmes as its official rating system since October 2025.
Coach Gary is a PPR Coach Developer appointed by the Asia Federation Pickleball, which means he is certified not only to coach but to certify other coaches — running PPR Level 1 workshops in Singapore and across the region. For a player, the practical significance is that the person teaching you the third shot drop is also the person who trains and assesses the coaches who teach it. If you are crossing over from tennis, that is the difference between being told what to do and being told why your old habit is costing you the point.
Frequently asked.
Is Coach Gary employed by all four organisations?
No. He is Director of Pickle for the TAG International Group and The PickleChoo Collection. PTR and PPR are certifying bodies: he holds their credentials and, in PPR’s case, is appointed to deliver their certification in the region.
Do I book my lesson through TAG or through PickleChoo?
Either reaches the same place. Court bookings run through picklechoo.com; coaching enquiries are best sent directly on +65 8962 8400, and the court is arranged as part of the session. Rates are on the private coaching page.
What is a PPR Coach Developer?
A coach certified by the Professional Pickleball Registry to run its certification workshops and assess other coaches, rather than only to teach players. Details of the workshops Coach Gary runs are on the coach certification page.
Can I train in tennis as well as pickleball?
Yes, and it is one of the advantages of the group. Tennis coaching runs through the same academy, with programmes from Pee Wee tennis at age three to competitive junior squads, so a family can keep both sports under one roof.
Does certification actually matter when choosing a coach?
On its own, not much — a certificate is a floor, not a ceiling. What it tells you is that someone outside the coach’s own business has tested what he teaches against a published standard. Combine that with whether he still competes, which you can check on the about page, and you have a reasonable picture.
Book a session
Private, group, junior and senior pickleball coaching across all three PickleChoo venues.
