Nagaland wins 11 medals at Kolkata Open 2026, leads amateur pickleball field

Nagaland did more than collect hardware at the Kolkata Open 2026. The Nagaland Pickleball Association finished with 11 medals, eight gold and three silver, a haul that made the state one of the standout programs in a field built to test depth and stamina.

The event ran from April 30 to May 3 at SportsPlex in Kolkata and carried real weight for amateur pickleball: it was Eastern India’s first IPA-sanctioned PWR400 ranking tournament. With 310 players, 30 categories and 1,021 matches over four days, the draw was large enough to reward consistency, not just one-off brilliance. The reported prize pool was Rs 13 lakh, and a pre-event structure that pointed to eight divisions and 33 categories signaled how quickly the competition had scaled.

Nagaland’s medals came from a 22-player contingent that performed well beyond what a newly formed state program might normally produce. Vilasier Khate was named Player of the Tournament, and Sonia Sarkar earned Emerging Player honors. Khate’s own run was central to the tally, with his two singles golds helping anchor the medal count and giving Nagaland a clear point of pressure in the bracket play.

What makes the result more striking is how fast the sport has grown in the state. Nathan Kaurinta Zeliang said pickleball had only been introduced in Nagaland about a year earlier, yet the association already had around 100 players even before formal registration began. That kind of participation base matters in a sport where the next medal run depends on how many players are getting real reps, not just how many show up for a headline event.

The Kolkata trip also built on an important local milestone. Nagaland’s first official pickleball event, the PWR 50 1st Nagaland Pickleball Open, was held at Aiko Greens in Dimapur on July 14, 2025, and drew 32 teams. Since then, the sport has grown quickly in Dimapur and Kohima, with more than 20 courts already established in Dimapur alone. Kuchi R Zeliang said the Kolkata Open gave players valuable exposure to a higher standard of play, and the medal count suggests that exposure is starting to translate into competitive depth rather than a single bright weekend.