Easy workout, no major skills needed: Pickleball is the city’s newfound love

‘PICKLEBALL HAS MORE TAKERS AS IT DOESN’T REQUIRE TOO MANY SKILLS’
Why is pickleball so popular among Amdavadis? Aalap Sharma, secretary, Gujarat State Pickleball Association (GSPA), says, “It doesn’t require too many skills. A pickleball court, like a badminton court, requires less running and the plastic ball doesn’t travel much. So, even an unskilled player can keep playing.”
Aalap adds, “We have promoted the sport extensively on social media. In 2021, we had this vision of making Ahmedabad the hub of pickleball in two years. We requested entrepreneurs to convert open-to-air badminton courts to pickleball courts. Within one-and-a-half years, we added about 160 courts.”

‘WORKING TOWARDS GETTING GOVERNMENT RECOGNITION’
Suryaveer Singh Bhullar, president of the Indian Pickleball Association (IPA) and president of Gujarat State Pickleball Association (GSPA), shares, “After the WPC, we hope that more players will take up the sport. We are also working towards getting pickleball recognised by the government and getting it added in Khel Mahakumbh. Once it is introduced in schools, it will automatically find more takers.”

‘WE TRAIN OVER 100 PICKLEBALL PLAYERS’
City-based pickleball coach Dhiren Patel, who has also been training tennis players for 18 years, won a gold medal at the US Open Pickleball Championship in March and is currently ranked number 1 globally(men’s singles 5.0 pro40+ category). He says, “Even in 2020, it was difficult to make people play pickleball due to lack of awareness. We’d even provide free trials for two days! Today, we train over 100 players every day.”
He adds, “I have been training and playing pickleball only for the past three years. I went to the US, got a certification and started training players.”

Did you know?
In 1965, Joel Pritchard and Bill Bell improvised with ping-pong paddles and a perforated plastic ball when they couldn’t find badminton racquets and the rest is history

What is pickleball?
Pickleball is a paddle sport played with a perforated plastic ball (both singles and doubles). It can be played both indoors and outdoors.