Mumbai Concludes Hugely Successful Monsoon Pickleball Championship, With Arjun Singh Copping Two Gold Medals
Mumbai’s Andheri Sports Complex played host to something substantial this past week: over 1,200 athletes across 48 categories, all converging for the fourth edition of the Monsoon Pickleball Championship. By the time the five-day event closed on August 2, one name kept turning up on the winner’s podium more than any other.
Arjun Singh capped the tournament with two gold medals. Partnering Harsh Mehta, he swept the pro men’s doubles final over Tejas Gulati and Kashyap Baranwal in what organisers Global Sports described as a genuine masterclass. He then turned around and won pro mixed doubles alongside Naomi Amalsadiwala, edging out Pearl Amalsadiwala and Divyanshu Kataria 13-11 in a deciding third set that lived up to the rivalry’s reputation—the two pairings, by all accounts, have made a habit of producing thrillers whenever they meet.
Singh called the pairing with Mehta a genuine opportunity to grow as an athlete, and said he was looking to carry the tournament’s momentum into World Cup competition with Global Sports’ continued backing.
Pearl Amalsadiwala didn’t leave empty-handed either, teaming with Naomi Amalsadiwala to continue their run atop the pro women’s doubles category with a one-sided win over Khushi Desai and Snehal Patil.
The singles brackets produced a mild upset of their own. Diwakar Agarwal took the pro men’s singles title, beating Rashein Samuel 11-9, 11-6 in the final — but the more notable result came earlier in the tournament, when Agarwal knocked out home favourite and pre-tournament pick Arjun Singh in the semi-finals. Singh’s doubles heroics, evidently, made up for the singles disappointment. On the women’s side, Khushi Desai claimed the singles crown over Shreya Chakraborty, 11-9, 11-0.
Day 4’s medal ceremony carried a bit of local political weight, with Sachin Ahir, Deputy Chairperson of the Maharashtra Legislative Council, on hand to present awards. Ahir praised Global Sports for continuing to raise the bar for pickleball in India year after year, pointing to Arjun Singh’s success as proof that the organisation rewards talent, and credited the group with reshaping the sport’s landscape in the country.
With 1,200-plus competitors across 48 categories over five days, the Monsoon Pickleball Championship 4.0 has settled into a familiar rhythm — a tournament that keeps expanding, and a small core of players, Arjun Singh chief among them, who keep finding new ways to leave Andheri with more medals than they arrived with.
