Two pickleball venues open a week apart: a 20-court Izu resort and a single Tokyo court beside a golf lounge
Within five days of each other, Izu Resort Villa opened 20 pickleball courts at its Shizuoka resort and CopterOne opened a single indoor court beside its Tokyo golf lounge — two dedicated venues at opposite ends of the market, neither claiming more than its own numbers support.
Two dedicated pickleball venues opened in Japan within five days of each other this month, at opposite ends of the market — a 20-court complex inside a Shizuoka resort and a single indoor court squeezed into an existing Tokyo golf lounge.
Izu Resort Villa, run by Izu Bio Park Co., Ltd. on the Izu Peninsula in Higashi-Izu, Shizuoka Prefecture, opened all 20 courts on 20 July with an opening ceremony that included a ribbon-cutting, a ceremonial first serve, demonstrations by professional players and open play sessions for the public, according to the operator. Izu Bio Park bills the facility as the largest pickleball complex in Japan by court count — a claim that is the operator's own.
In Tokyo, CopterOne Co., Ltd. opened Pickle9 on 15 July inside its existing Loun9ine golf lounge in the basement of a building in Minami-Aoyama, a few minutes' walk from Omotesando and Gaienmae stations, the company said. The venue adds a single dedicated indoor pickleball court, which can hold up to eight players, alongside the lounge's four golf-simulator bays, open from 11am to 11pm, with pickleball court time priced at ¥9,000 to ¥13,000 an hour depending on the day and time. CopterOne describes it as the area's first dedicated indoor pickleball court.
The pairing lands on either side of a build-out floortok has tracked through the summer — Sansan's dedicated court in Ikebukuro and Prince Hotels' new courts at its Hakone Sengokuhara property among the recent additions. Izu Resort Villa is a scale bet: enough courts to host a full weekend programme at a resort three hours from Tokyo, aimed at multi-night leisure guests. Pickle9 is a footprint bet: one court bolted onto real estate a golf lounge already had, in one of Tokyo's densest premium retail streets, wagering that a night on the greens can be paired with a night on the court. Neither company's release puts a number on how big pickleball itself is getting in Japan — what each is confident of is narrower: that its own venue, and its own customers, can support the addition.