Playing the Social Game: America’s fastest growing Pickleball sport is powering a
SMASHVILLE, A TINY racquet sport club located on Chennai’s busy East Coast Road (ECR), sits between a wedding hall and a massive Mughlai restaurant. So, when a car pulls up by its gate (framed by a hoarding announcing the presence of tennis and pickleball courts…
SMASHVILLE, A TINY racquet sport club located on Chennai’s busy East Coast Road (ECR), sits between a wedding hall and a massive Mughlai restaurant. So, when a car pulls up by its gate (framed by a hoarding announcing the presence of tennis and pickleball.
But they make their way into Smashville in a group, pick up their paddles and are ushered by the club’s assistant to the only vacant pickleball court. There, for an hour between 7 and 8PM under short floodlights, they indulge in a round of.
What Happened
To the metronomic soundtrack of paddle on plastic ball, the family swat forehands and backhands, shout out scores, laugh on occasion and chat away, all while sweating profusely. When the hour is complete, they return their paddles, jump back into the car.
In the National Capital Region (NCR), where space isn’t a constraint, entire pickleball-exclusive centres have sprouted out of nowhere, such as Pickleball Kingdom in Gurugram, spread over 20,000 square feet with eight indoor courts.
The sport was invented in 1965 in Washington, when three friends—Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum—improvised a game to entertain their bored children using a badminton court, ping-pong paddles and a perforated plastic.
For someone of his pedigree, it is remarkable that Bhatia stumbled upon the sport almost by accident as recently as late 2020, when a pickleball court appeared at his home club, Khar Gymkhana.
Key Details
The fact that Navneeth says this from deep inside the only tennis facility – a clay court – on the premises isn’t lost on anybody. Navneeth used to be a professional tennis player, a national champion at the Under-14 level in India.
A former competitive tennis player, he picked up a paddle out of curiosity, entered his first tournament in Goregaon in May 2021 and won it.
Like Navneeth and Gulatti, but with a paddle in hand, he spotted pickleball’s potential long before much of the country did.
Today, Bhatia is among the world’s leading doubles players and at the heart of India’s fledgling professional circuit.
Why It Matters
When he was done with his tennis career and looked to get into coaching kids in his mid-30s, Navneeth was certain of building his own academy. He chanced upon a plot of land in Injambakkam, ECR, that could either fit two tennis.
That’s when I took the call to play pickleball full-time.
He isn’t just India’s top-ranked player, but the best in Asia.
What Reports Say
Coverage of the story so far points to:
Continued reporting by Open Magazine as more details emerge
