The All India Pickleball Association (AIPA) is the governing body of Pickleball in India. It functions as a nonprofit organization, providing support to other National and Local Pickleball organizations, It has organized the Amateur Pickleball Federation, India as its executive body to conduct pickleball tournaments in India. Indian Pickleball is now well-respected internationally. All India Pickleball Association (AIPA) has contributed steadily to grow this game in India. This has given immense opportunities to players to show their skill and talent.
Mr. Sunil Valavalkar brought the game into India in 2008 and he formed the All India Pickleball Association (AIPA) in the year 2008 as a not-for-profit organisation under Section 25 of the Companies Act and has been promoting the sport in India for the last 15 years. AIPA has been formally granted affiliation of the International Pickleball Federation (IPF), USA in the year 2015. It is also the founding member of Asia Federation of Pickleball, Singapore.
Under the able leadership of the President Shri Arvind Ramesh Prabhoo, AIPA is trying its best to get the sport recognised by the Government and the Sports Authority of India. This will lead to the game being included in school & University games and thereafter in National games.
AIPA's vision is to popularize the sport in India and ensure grassroot development of the sport throughout India. AIPA has already started its engagement & development programme in which talented players are identified and given all around training in skills, diet, physical endurance, mental conditioning, etc. under the watchful eyes of specialists in respective fields. AIPA thrives to achieve success by creating and nurturing a robust bunch of talented players who can compete against the best players in World Pickleball.
A racquet sport that combines elements of tennis, table tennis and badminton, pickleball is growing in popularity across the country. People from the age of eight to 80 are playing the game either for recreation, some sort of exercise or professionally that was originally invented in 1965 in the US. In India, many discovered pickleball mostly during the Covid-19 pandemic as a non-contactable sport with health benefits, but the first efforts to introduce the game in the country began in the late 2000s.
The real push, though, concedes Valavalkar, came when he approached Arvind Prabhoo, chairman of PTKS. Prabhoo came with exemplary vision, extensive resources, and a vast pool of knowledge he has been in sports administration for 25 years.
Merely talking about the sport was not enough. Prabhoo felt they must get people to play pickleball if they wanted to take the game to every nook and corner of the country. So, in 2018, he organised a local tournament in Mumbai where 64 players (32 teams) turned up. Enthused by the response, Prabhoo held an inaugural ranking tournament in Balewadi, Pune, that saw 250 participants from 17 states. In two days, over 1,000 matches were played. The second edition of the tournament in Palawa, Dombivli, in 2021 saw the participation of 19 states and staged 1,300 matches thereafter.
