The latest Indian Pickleball League to launch ran its inaugural event this past week in New Dehli, sanctioned by the India Pickleball Association and launched by the Times Group (the same group that in July 2024 backed the fledgling PWR initiative).
The player base for the league featured a combination of top APP pros from the US, top players from the Australian tour, a smattering of the top PPA Asia pros, plus a slew of up-and-coming “Indian Rising Stars.” The six-team league conducted its draft on 11/23/25, with each team auctioning for the rights to two players from the “Super Stars Pro International” group, two from the “Super Stars Pro India” group, and then two from the “India Rising Stars” group to make up the six-person roster.
Here were the rosters (the players are in order of International picks, then Pro India picks, then Rising Stars picks):
Mumbai Smashers: Quang Duong, Allison Harris, Ammol Ramchandani, Pearl Amalsadiwala, Rishi Reddy, Sindoor Mittal
Lucknow Leopards: Ryler DeHeart, Shelby Bates, Aditya Ruhela, Ronav Motian, Mihika Yadav, Naomi Amalsadiwala
Hyderabad Royals: Ben Newell, Megan Fudge, Divyanshu Kataria, Snehal Patil, Tejas Gulat, Shreya Chakraborty
Chennai Super Warriors: Mitchell Hargreaves, Roos Van Reek, Harsh Mehta, Aaliya Ebrahim, Aman Patel, Priyanka Mehta
Capital Warriors Gurgaon: Jack Munro, Emilia Schmidt, Stavya Bhasin, Naimi Mehta , Arik Badam, Danielle Jones
Bengaluru Blasters: Phuc Huynh, Pei Chuan Kao, Arjun Singh, Rakshikha Ravi , Aditya Singh, Shraddha Damani.
The top international players are house-hold names to followers of the pickleball space, with six top-ranked APP players in the mix (DeHeart, Fudge, Harris, Bates, Newell, and Munro). Some of the Australian circuit’s best are here as well (Hargreaves, Van Reek, Schmidt) along with stars from the Asian tour (Huynh and Kao in particular). They were joined by native talents headlined by top Indian players Ruhela and Mehta to fill out the rosters.
A big chunk of this field flew in early to compete in the 2025 Petrolimex Vietnam Masters, hosted by the D-Joy group and played in Ho Chi Minh City. We got a good early view of how the league may go as Fudge & Munro took doubles, top Australian Dennehy took the singles title, and Vietnamese star Quang Duong nearly took a triple crown, winning Men’s Singles (over PPA Asia #1 Huynh in the final), Men’s Doubles with Munro, and losing in the final of Mixed.
Here’s a quick recap of the competition. The six teams played a full round robin for the first five days of the event, which qualified the top 4 into the semis, where they played two rounds of knockouts to determine the winner. The table and match results are at the Times Now’s Pickleball home page.
In the group stage, the Chennai Super-Warriors opened with a statement win, dominating Mumbai 5-1 behind its Australia-based super stars. The Hyderabad Royals looked to be equally as dominant, led by APP’s #1 combined female Megan Fudge and taking second place in the group stage. The Mumbai Mashers, led by Quang Duong, started slowly, getting crushed 5-1 by Chennai on day one and finished the group stage just 1-3-1, but squeaked into the playoffs as the 4th seed based on tiebreakers.
In the semis, Hyderabad got revenge against Chennai and upset the Super-Warriors to secure a spot in the finals, while Mumbai rallied for a win against the Lucknow Leopards to secure a spot in the final. There, Mumbai finally put everything together and crushed Hyderabad 5-1 for the title.
The competition featured a slew of “young pro” upsets against established international stars, further showing how far pickleball is coming in the region. Whether its Vietnam, India, China, or Australia, the stars continue to make inroads against their domestic rivals here in the US.
