India’s growing popularity as a potential racquet sports hub is ready to get a massive increase with the launch of the World Pickleball League (WPBL), the first-ever professional pickleball league.
India’s growing reputation as a capability racquet sports hub is all set to get a huge boost with the launch of the World Pickleball League (WPBL), the primary-ever expert pickleball league. The league is envisaged by Natekar Sports and Gaming (NSG) of former Davis Cup tennis celebrity and Arjuna Awardee Gaurav Natekar and the Sony Entertainment Talent Ventures India (SETVI). Pickleball, a racquet sport, combines elements of tennis, desk tennis, and badminton and has received full-size traction globally.
Using his vast revel in of over 35 years as a participant, consultant, entrepreneur, and administrator, Natekar stated: “We are proud to unveil the inaugural international expert pickleball league in India. Its clean-to-analyze-and-play nature coupled with it being age and gender agnostic makes it the ideal game for humans to pop out and play thereby democratizing sports activities participation like in no way before.”
The inaugural version of the league will witness six franchises compete for the identify. Each team can have five to eight players together with worldwide stars. The league may also mandate the teams to have Indian players and junior gamers who will shape part of the group to rub shoulders and study from the nice gamers inside the international.
Arvind Prabhoo, President of All India Pickleball Federation and International Pickleball Federation too, welcomed the expert pickleball league and stated this initiative ought to exchange the future of the sport inside the u . S ..
“Pickleball has been one of the quickest-growing sports activities in India considering that 2008. A expert league like this could most effective give impetus to the increase of the game and gives me self assurance that inside the subsequent 5 years, our prospective target to get 1 million gamers engaged in pickleball throughout the kingdom is nicely inside our attain and has the opportunity that the game could be referred to the various top-10 sports activities in the u . S . A .,” he commented.
Currently played in over 80 international locations, pickleball is extraordinarily popular inside the Asia Pacific area and has been growing steadfastly in India inside the previous few years with over 30,000 amateur gamers and 8000 registered players throughout 18 states already gambling the sport. The recreation calls for much less space than Tennis and can be performed by every body from the age of seven to 70, making it one of the maximum famous recreational in addition to aggressive sports in lots of components of the arena.
