Rajiv Kumar leads eastern India medal haul at Pickleball Championship 2025

Rajiv Kumar did more than collect two golds in Ranchi. He became the face of a zone that is starting to look less like a stopover and more like a production line for Indian pickleball, with eastern states filling podium spots across age groups and brackets.

At the 4th East Zone Pickleball Championship 2025, held at Khelgaon Indoor Stadium in Ranchi from April 10-12, Rajiv Kumar won Open Men’s Singles and added Open Men’s Doubles gold with Anukul Singh. Prachenta Verma also stood out, taking Girls’ Singles under 18, while medals spread across Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and neighboring states. Deepak Paswan reached the podium twice, taking silver in Open Men’s Doubles with Ranjan Kumar and another silver in Open Mixed Doubles with Prachenta Verma.

The depth was not limited to the headline events. Hridhhan Goenka won Boys’ Singles 14U, Anurag Kumar took Boys’ Singles 16U, and Vishal Nishad claimed Boys’ Singles 18U. In another sign that the field is getting more layered, Aastha Priyadarshani and Attulit Shrawan won Junior Mixed Doubles, while Aditya Gupta and Apurv Kumar secured bronze in Men’s Doubles. The tournament page also showed how broad the competition had become, with U-14, U-15, U-19, Open 19+ and Masters divisions for 35-plus, 50-plus and 60-plus players.

That spread matters. A sport does not build real national depth just by crowning adult champions; it builds it when 14-and-under players, university-age entrants and Masters competitors all have meaningful brackets to play in. Ranchi offered that structure, and the numbers around the event backed it up.

The championship was paired with a Coaches and Referee Clinic in Hyderabad on April 11-12 that drew more than 120 coaches and referees from across India. AIPA president Arvind Ramesh Prabhoo has said the association has a presence in 24 states, and AIPA says pickleball was brought to India in 2008, the same year it was formed as a not-for-profit. It also says it has staged six national tournaments, two Federation Cups, three Indian Open tournaments, three national ranking tournaments and two league championships, with more than 10,000 active players now in the system.

The Indian Pickleball Association, which identifies itself as the government-recognized national governing body, lists coach certification and referee training among its core functions. Put together, the Ranchi results and the Hyderabad clinic point to the same conclusion: zonal events are becoming the engine room of Indian pickleball, especially in places like eastern India where the next wave of elite talent is starting to rise outside the country’s usual sports centers.