Pickleball’s popularity in India goes beyond just a recreational sport

Widely touted as a hybrid of tennis, table tennis and badminton, pickleball is played with carbon fibre paddles and wiffle balls, and has its own set of rules

At least three evenings a week, Dr Bela Kotwani can be found on the pickleball court at Khar Gymkhana in Mumbai, and each time she’s playing to win. “I use my mind to play the game. I try to make my opponent run before they can make me do it,” laughs the 57-year-old educationist and puppeteer. 

Growing up, Kotwani says she played multiple racket sports, even representing Maharashtra in table tennis competitions. She returned to playing sports in her middle age, first with tennis and then badminton. She was first introduced to pickleball at a camp at the Gymkhana in 2018, and was quick to adopt it. “I’m overweight, but at my age, I’ve medalled at pickleball competitions. I think that says a lot about the sport’s appeal.” 

Almost 60 years after it was invented by a US Congressman and his friends living on Bainbridge Island, Washington, pickleball has found global currency, with European countries and China taking to it, and is now one of the fastest growing sports in India. Widely touted as a hybrid of tennis, table tennis and badminton, pickleball is played with carbon fibre paddles and wiffle balls, and has its own set of rules. 

Accessible and affordable

First introduced in India in 2006 by Sunil Valavalkar—now the founder-director of the All India Pickleball Association—pickleball’s rise into the mainstream has been slow. However, it had its “viral” moment during the Coronavirus pandemic, when it gained traction as an easy-to-play, non-contact sport. Today, it has enthusiasts from ages eight to 80 flexing it out on courts for recreational, fitness and competitive purposes. But what is it about pickleball that has thousands of people in its thrall?

“Frankly, pickleball is addictive,” says Mumbai-based pro pickleball player Harsh Mehta. “There is no age or gender bar. It’s one of the few sports that has a 35-plus or 50-plus category for players of those ages. Also, unlike tennis, known to be a rich man’s sport, it is very simple to lay out a pickleball court anywhere. All you need is some tape on the floor and a portable net, and people from any background can play. It is accessible, convenient and affordable.” 

Before he was introduced to pickleball—at the same camp as Kotwani in 2018—Mehta was training to be a pro table tennis player, having made captain of the Mumbai TT team. After he won a competition in 2018—the JNS Open—he was hooked. At 25, Mehta is among India’s top pickleball players—along with his partner Armaan Bhatia (formerly a pro tennis player), he won the gold in the Men’s Doubles at the World Pickleball Championship held in Bali in September 2023.

Playing by a learning curve 

Months before that, Mehta and Bhatia launched their own coaching academy. “For anyone who’s played table tennis and tennis especially, it’s [pickleball] really simple because you already have that “ball sense”—you know how to reach and connect the ball—and you understand court coverage,” explains Mehta. “But really, anyone with good hand-eye coordination can do well in pickleball—just that the learning curve might be higher for them,” he adds.  

Aneesh Bhasin, co-founder of Svami Drinks, attests. A golf and basketball player all his life, the 38-year-old decided to take a swing at pickleball three months ago—simply because “a friend was talking about it”. Now, he plays for two hours each morning, has hired a coach and is actively participating in tournaments—such as the recently concluded Indian Open in Mumbai. 

“The learning curve can be easier than tennis, and that is one thing that is making a lot of people want to try it. It’s not intimidating,” he says. So how exactly is pickleball different from the other racket sports it is believed to have derived from? “It’s a game of patience,” says Bhasin. “My partner Saransh [Goila] and I are still at that stage where we are playing with aggression; often hitting the ball hard out of temptation. We need to improve our accuracy quite a bit.”    

Mehta gets more technical. “In tennis, for example, if you are serving, you are likely to win the game. Pickleball neutralises the serving advantage. You have to serve below the waist—just like in badminton, where you cannot serve above a certain height.”

“You can’t enter the ‘kitchen’ of the court, which is a foot-space from the net on both sides, before the ball bounces in that area,” continues Mehta. “Then we have the ‘dink’, a type of stroke that doesn’t exist in any other sport. It’s a soft serve that keeps the ball in the kitchen area, and takes a little time to master. It can result in long rallies and that makes the sport more watchable.” 

More than a passing trend 

Since starting their academy Blaze Pickleball eight months ago, Mehta and Bhatia have signed on 100 students across proficiency and age levels, with the biggest chunk falling in the 12-25 age group who are aspiring to play professionally. But they’ve also seen older players—“people who might have peaked in their sporting careers or lost touch due to injuries”—turn into pickleball enthusiasts. 

“Due to the big money flow—brands, sponsors, tournaments—there is a fair amount of intrigue around the sport’s future,” says Mehta. The Indian Open was just one example of that, with over 700 players from US, Europe, Kenya, Taiwan, India and more coming together for a four-day ‘carnival,’ ample celebrity participation and a whopping US$100,000 in total prize money. 

“We organised our first tournament in Goa last year, a second in August in Mumbai called the Monsoon Pickleball, and then the India Open,” says Hemal Jain, a real estate developer and co-founder of Global Sports, an organisation that is at the forefront of promoting pickleball in Mumbai and Maharashtra. “Participation and interest is only growing. It’s not a sport, it’s pop culture.”

Jain and his cohort are certain that pickleball is no passing trend, and that it has more going for it than just the novelty factor. Acting on this opportunity, Global Sports has opened 38 pickleball courts between Borivali and Lower Parel in Mumbai; is holding demonstrations for corporates and schools; is in the process of building an elite team of pickleball athletes; and is courting Bollywood celebrities, famous sportspeople and industrialists to increase the sport’s visibility. 

Jain and Mehta observe that while the metropolitan cities are where a big chunk of the action is, pickleball is being played in small-town India as well. “We had players from towns like Jalgaon and Aurangabad, as well as the outskirts of Gujarat, Aurangabad, Karnataka, Bihar, and Sikkim at the India Open,” says Jain. 

“But at an organisational level,” adds Jain, “a lot of the sport’s growth has been through private enterprise. There are two or three all-India associations that are trying to push for recognition of the game. But the government would grant that only if it sees a rise in the volume of players. As of now, it’s a tricky situation, and could take some time.”   

“Of course, the politics has begun already,” states Mehta. “But the fact is that pickleball is on the growth path.” Associations in the United States are gunning for the sport to be included in the Olympics; 2032 or 2036 might just be the year we see that happen. “It makes sense then, for people to be gunning for that first-mover advantage,” concludes Mehta.

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