Top News

It initially began as a recreational activity and soon turned into something far more serious. "And we just started playing recreationally, and after a few months we got pretty serious and started competing," Patel said. Patel is already an experienced player for India on the international stage. It is not the first time he will be representing India at the  . He has done it before. "It is a huge honour, and it is like the best feeling ever. So, this is what you play for basically to represent your country. And I take immense pride in playing for India," he said.

'India is also equally on the rise'

His experience at the World Cup last year has prepared him to face the level required to compete against the best players. He also believes that the gap between India and leading pickleball countries is narrowing. "Of course, it is very different. It is a great level over there internationally. But India is also equally on the rise," he said. "So, I would say that we are getting there quite quickly and we are ready to catch up to them." His training for the 2026 World Cup is reliant on singles. He has been working on his fitness and is aiming to give balance to an Indian team that has dominant doubles players. "Specifically, I have been training a lot for singles. Working on my fitness, my body and trying to get more repetitions for singles and to get ahead. Just to give a good balance to the team," he said. "As you know, Harsh and Arjun are very good doubles players. So, we have been trying to back them up through some good singles practice."

'We can compete with everyone'

Patel also feels that India may not be among the highly rated teams at the World Cup, but he believes that it could work in their favour. "I think we can give a great run for the money to everyone. We can compete with everyone. Probably, they wouldn't rate us that highly. But I feel we have a great balanced team and we can definitely compete with them on every front," he said. According to Patel, the biggest challenge for India is to give consistent exposure to its players against higher-level opposition. Patel's ambitions also go beyond his own career. He wants pickleball to become a mainstream sport in India, similar to cricket or football, and he feels that a strong World Cup campaign could trigger that. "For me personally, I would want it to be a mainstream sport as you said, like cricket or football. I would love for more and more people to take it up seriously and even more people to watch it live so that they know what the sport truly is about and they can just get into it more and more," he said.