LOTS OF FUN: INSIDE PICKLEBALL'S RISE

OUR dentists, some journalists and a few product managers are all part of a WhatsApp group. Every week, one person in the group runs a poll. It's to ask the others whether they are up for playing pickleball later that week. As long as the 'ayes' have a quorum of five, they book a pickleball court at Ice Water Arena in Express Avenue (or in some other facility) in Chennai. A few weeks ago, most of the 21-strong group voted in favour of a two-hour session from 10 PM. So they ended up booking all three courts at EA.

- SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN @ Chennai

Welcome to a sport that's 'one part table tennis, one part tennis, one part badminton and many parts of fun'. It's that last part — fun — which has made them keep coming back to the sport ever since all of them hit a wiffle ball in anger three-four months ago. There is nothing sui generis about playing this particular sport. In fact, a lot of the traditionalists remain unconvinced. Yet, for the group, and for myriad others, it's a gentle drip of dopamine hooked straight to the veins for a couple of hours every week. “You play on a weekday night,” says Ashray Jain, “and it gives you a high. Next morning you wake up without a hangover.”

When Vimalraj Jayachandran won tennis gold at the Khelo India University Games (representing Madras University) in Bhubaneswar in 2020, he was looking ahead to a promising tennis career. Yet, these days, Jayachandran, 27, is making a name for himself in a totally different sport. Yep, you guessed it. “It (the tennis career) wasn't going anywhere,” Jayachandran, who has an official ATP Tour landing page, tells this daily. “There was a lack of sponsors and I was looking around… pickleball is slowly transforming into my first love. I'm now playing it professionally.”