Vinay Sethia lifts Kolkata’s pickleball profile with global rise

Vinay Sethia’s rise has done more than add another trophy line to his resume. It has given Kolkata a face in the international pickleball conversation, with the city’s profile rising as Sethia climbed to No. 1 in the Pro 35+ Singles category in the latest World Pickleball Championships rankings.

The clearest proof of that shift came on January 17, 2026, when Sethia and Yuvraj Ruia won the Open Men’s 35+ doubles title at the Kolkata Pickleball Championship, a tight finish over Maitreya Bhagat and Anay Patil. On the same day, Sethia went down to Anay Patil in the Open 35+ Singles final at the IPA-sanctioned PWR 200 event. The split result captured his range: strong enough to win at doubles speed, competitive enough to remain a force in the singles draw, even when the final went the other way.

Kolkata’s growth did not begin with one ranking, but Sethia has become the most visible symbol of it. At Bengal Open 2.0 in 2024, the city hosted 300 players across six courts at Remount Road, with singles, doubles and mixed doubles staged for junior, senior and open categories. Thirty women competed in that event, and Sethia took the 35+ singles gold, another marker that the local draw is no longer a niche stop but a serious tournament market with depth across age groups and divisions.

That scale matters because pickleball in Asia is increasingly being built city by city, not just federation by federation. Sethia’s influence in Kolkata has been linked to growth well beyond his own results. He is a confectionery entrepreneur, but on court he has collected multiple medals at the IPA Nationals, Indian Masters and the Ultimate Pickleball Showdown. His grassroots work at One Love pickleball academy has also been credited with helping push Kolkata into India’s top four or five pickleball regions, a sign that infrastructure and repeat participation now matter as much as one-off titles.

For other Asian cities trying to break into the sport’s next tier, Kolkata offers a workable blueprint: create a visible champion, stage high-volume events with enough courts to absorb demand, and build a pathway from academy-level play to sanctioned competition. India’s broader momentum has already shown up on the international calendar, too, with the All India Pickleball Association set to host the World Pickleball Championship Series in Mumbai from November 12 to 17, 2024, the first time the series was scheduled in India. Kolkata’s surge suggests the next Asian pickleball hub will not emerge by accident. It will be built, match by match, venue by venue, until the city itself becomes part of the sport’s selling point.