by Joe James
What’s the Story?
The Pickleball World Rankings (PWR) DUPR India League has been hit with its second postponement, leaving the league’s future uncertain.
Initially planned for a January 2025 launch, the competition now suffers from an indefinite start date due to another delay, as the previously rescheduled dates of March 17-23 will not happen either.
More organisational time and opportunities for team owners to understand the sport and players, promoting the league, and clashes with the Indian Premier League (IPL), India’s premier cricket event, were cited as factors for the delay.
Founder and CEO of PWR, Pran Kholi, said to The Dink: “Owing to the rushed schedule, the team owners wanted some time to understand the sport and players better. They also wanted to create marketing and PR around their team.
“Team owners with our broadcasters believed that the first season is the most critical, and we took a last-minute call not to clash with the IPL (Indian Premier League)- the biggest cricket league and the biggest sporting event in India. The Indian Premier League announced their schedule to start on 22nd March.”
The PWR DUPR Indian League had promoted a prize pool of $540,000 and a minimum of $15,000 for each player drafted to a team.
Former World No.1 tennis legend and eight-time Grand Slam winner Andre Agassi was confirmed to come to India for the opening ceremony held at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai.
Repeated delays to the league have created concern in the pickleball league that the event may never happen.
The Recap
The PWR DUPR India League is a team-based league which was first announced in September 2024 but has since suffered two delays, with the start date now unknown.
Held at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai, the $540,000 prize pool event was set to be headlined by tennis icon Andre Agassi, who is an active pickleball participant as well as a board member and partner with JOOLA.
Agassi faced off against Indian tennis star Rohan Bopanna in an exhibition match to signal the launch of the league last December.
Originally scheduled for January 5-25, the league will guarantee the 60 drafted players a minimum of $15,000 for participation. The first placed side would win a total of $180,00 ($45,000 per person), with second receiving $120,000 ($30,000 per person), and the remaining teams leaving India with $60,000 ($15,000 per person).
The 60 players will be drafted into teams, each consisting of two men and two women, akin to the Major League Pickleball (MLP) format and emphasising mixed competition.
The PWR previously organised the India Masters tournament in New Delhi in 2024, with the new lucrative league, despite its uncertainty, still expected to kick off this year.
It is still up in the air, but the PWR DUPR Indian League will move to Japan after the Mumbai leg. Then, the league will continue across India once more, visiting Ahmedabad, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, New Delhi and Chennai, but it is unknown as of now how this will look.
The PWR is a partnership between The Times Group, the news and entertainment leaders in India, and Pickleball Asia Private Limited.
The PWR, the PWR World Series, and the PWR World Tour were launched in Dubai last July, with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as the host region for the first PWR World Series.
The PWR World Series will have three marquee events with prize pools of between $1m and $1.5m, which rival tennis’s grand slam prizes. The first will be in Dubai, UAE, followed by Madrid, Spain and Las Vegas, USA.
At the start of this year, a plethora of talented players have signed up and could feature in the tournament, with the original list as follows:
Men’s Division
Aditya Ruhela
Armaan Bhatia
Grayson Goldin
Ryler DeHeart
Tom Evans
Zach Grabovic
Joey Wild
Kyle Koszuta
Jack Munro
Patrick Kawka
Harsh Mehta
Erik Lange
Casey Diamond
Andre Mick
Max Manthou
Will Howells
Dusty Boyer
Ben Newell
Women’s Division
Danni-Elle Townsend
Somer Dalla-Bona
Selina Turulja
Megan Fudge DeHeart
Christa Gecheva
Xiao Yi Wang-Beckvall
Yu-Chieh Hsieh
Jill Braverman
Susannah Barr
Christine Maddox
Sofia Sewing
Allison Harris
Amanda Hendry
Pei Chuan Kao
Yana Newell
Ting Chieh Wei
Emilia Schmidt
However, it remains to be seen with the schedule uncertainty how the rosters will shape up, but should it stay the same, it will be a fascinating league and event.
To qualify for the PWR World Series event, players must accumulate points through participation in the PWR World Tour, such as India, through the global ranking system put in place.
Fans and players alike will be hoping that the PWR Tour in Mumbai will kick off sooner rather than later in what promises to be a highly anticipated event.
The World Pickleball Verdict
As things stand, the PWR DUPR India League, after two delays, has no future date set at the time of writing.
The reasons for the delay, such as more time for owners and partners to understand the spirit, as well as better marketing and clashing with the IPL, mean the stuttering beginning to the highly anticipated tour is understandable, albeit frustrating for fans and players.
On the upside, the event is not cancelled and the PWR World Tours and PWR World Series promise to be game-changers in the pickleball world.
One may perceive these delays as growing pains for such an ambitious project, which is to be expected. However, the calendar for the entire year could well be disrupted, and it is disappointing that such a huge event is causing concerns before it has truly got going.
Despite initial fanfare and support from icons like Andre Agassi, many will hope this news doesn’t suggest underlying instability.
The delay reflects the complexities of cultivating a major new event in a sport that has only recently found its feet in India. Many inside the game believe pickleball can rival and overtake India’s love for cricket, but for that to even be remotely true, the events must begin.
The WPBL this year was an emphatic and resounding success, which ran, by all accounts, as smoothly as you could hope for a debuting tournament. Yet with the amount of money, time and ambition involved in the PWR, it is disappointing that organisers seem underprepared.
A polished and successful event is paramount and the goal, but repeated delays set you on track to dampen enthusiasm and erode the trust of players and fans.
Organisers have assured that the PWR DUPR India League will go ahead and overcome their hurdles, and given there is no new date announced, it remains to be seen if these delays are just what they have been described as or if there is something more underlying.
The World Pickleball Magazine hopes it is purely the former as this whole concept could be a groundbreaking development for the game.