Dilli Dillwale beat Chennai Super Champs 3-2 to claim WPBL Season 2

Dilli Dillwale claimed the World Pickleball League Season 2 title with a 3-2 win over table-toppers Chennai Super Champs at Jio World Garden in Mumbai, concluding the tournament on February 8, 2026. After dropping the opening women’s singles match, the Sunil Gavaskar co-owned outfit won three of the remaining four matches to lift their maiden WPBL crown, a turnaround that upset expectations set by Chennai’s league stage dominance.

The turning point arrived in the men’s doubles, where Max Manthou and Erik Lange produced the most concrete scoreline of the night. Tribune/ANI reported, “Max Manthou and Erik Lange smashed home a 14-6 result against Tanner Tomassi, who was alongside Do Minh Quan for most of the encounter.” Chennai activated their tactical lifeline, using the Pickle Play option to bring Ly Hoang Nam onto the court temporarily, but Dilli’s pair held firm to secure a crucial point in the best-of-five club-format final.

Individual honours underlined Dilli’s impact and the tournament’s competitive spread. Max Manthou was adjudged Player of the Tournament, while Ly Hoang Nam earned the Band of Honour for men for winning the most points in the campaign and Katerina Stewart of Bengaluru Jawans took the Band of Honour for women. The Player of the Tournament award and Band of Honour distinctions were announced in the post-match releases cited by Tribune/ANI and The Daily Guardian.

Tactically, Dilli’s comeback reflected sharp in-match adjustments rather than raw firepower alone. After the early women’s singles loss, Dilli shifted momentum through selective aggression in doubles and decisive point construction at the net, a pattern that helped neutralize Chennai’s league-leading rhythm. Chennai’s use of Pickle Play to insert Nam shows how teams exploited WPBL-specific rules as a strategic lever; the temporary substitution narrowed a matchup gap but did not reverse Dilli’s accumulation of match wins.

Season 2 also carried broader industry signals. Hindustan Times described the edition as a step forward from the inaugural season, saying WPBL “established itself as the world’s biggest pickleball festival” driven by founders Gaurav Natekar, an Arjuna Awardee and two-time Asian Games gold medallist, and Arati Ponnappa Natekar, a former India No.1 in tennis. Celebrity ownership and a fan-first presentation helped the league scale its spectacle and commercial profile in Mumbai’s Jio World Garden setting.

The competitive calendar remains busy after WPBL. Forbes noted many participants are headed to the Leapmotor APP Kuala Lumpur Open, the first stop on the 2026 APP International tour with purportedly more than 1,900 entrants, while a number of players will appear at the PPA Cape Coral Open in the United States. WPBL Season 2’s mix of marquee ownership, award-winning performances by Manthou and others, and tactical innovations such as Pickle Play have positioned the league as a launchpad for Asian players into a crowded global schedule, and as a growing commercial model for pickleball’s expansion across the region.