Sea Surge Team in MLP Australia
Sarah Jane Lim was first drafted into MLP Australia in January of 2024. She had just started playing pickleball in april of 2023 and was surprised to have been considered for the big leagues after only playing in a few international tournaments in the end of 2024.
MLP, Major league Pickleball, is the biggest pickleball team league in the US. And MLP Australia is their franchise in the Asia Pacific region. MLP Australia has 12 teams, 10 Australian teams and 2 asians teams. 4 players each team, 2 male and 2 female. The drafted players comprised of the top PPA Australian and PPA Asian pros and some US pros.
Sarah represented the Western Vipers jn Season 1 and Gold Coast Glory in season 2. Leander Lazaro, our top male pickleball player was then drafted as well in season 2 after winning silver in the PPA Australia New Zealand event and showing good performance all in all. He played for the Southeast Asia Surge, where they won 1st in the Gold Coast MLP Event in August of 2024
In December of 2024, Sarah was selected to be the team captain of the Southeast Asia Surge team for the 2025 season. Sarah said that as the captain of SEA Surge, she wanted to draft an all-asian team because she believed in Asian talent.
In the first half of the year she drafted Leander Lazaro, Ricky Lyn from Taiwan, and Vrushali Thakari from India. Unfortunately, because of VISA issues, she was never able to have her complete team until the second to the last event and the finals. “Not having a complete team is tough because you don’t get to play in your ideal set up”, she says, but she is grateful nevertheless for the 7 subs that stepped up to fill her team in the first 4 events.
She was forced to do a redraft because of the inability to get a complete team and that’s when fellow filipino, and pro tennis player, Ruben Gonzales messaged Leander that he was retiring from tennis and wanted to pursue professional pickleball. At the same time, Sarah had been touring all over Asia and had been touring mainly in Vietnam and have seen the talent that had been developing, and so she decided to draft Ruben, and Ken Tam from vietnam.
The Surge has consistently finished in 11th or 12th in the first 4 events from April to September but when they finally had a complete team in Geelong (October 2025), with Ruben and Ken tam, they came out 9th in their debut tournament together. And in the final event in Sydney in November 2025 they made it to the top 4, beating past champion teams.
The feat they accomplished in just 2 events playing together makes them wonder what they could have done if they were able to play from the start of the season to the end. Nevertheless, they are ecstatic about the result and are encouraged.
Sarah’s goal to feature asian talent was accomplished. And their 4th finish shows that Asians, Filipinos can achieve it. It’s doable. Sarah and Leander both make it a goal to develop the next generation of Filipino Pickleball Pros because they are confident that we have the talent.
These are our Filipino athletes trailblazing for the next generation. They said that they are happy with what they have been able to accomplish all over Asia, in the MLP, PPA, and other tournaments, but they know the next generation can do more.
