PWR DUPR India Masters Pickleball Tournament is being played in the country’s capital Delhi. In this tournament, 25 year old Armaan Bhatia performed brilliantly and qualified for the finals of not one or two but three events. Armaan is counted among the best players of the country in pickleball. Continuing his excellent form in this tournament, he entered the final of mixed doubles with fellow player Rut van Ryck of Netherlands. Armaan defeated Indian and Australian pair Vishal Masand and Sarah Barr 11-5, 11-1 in the semi-finals. Now on Sunday evening, they will face Australian pair George Wall and Danny Townsend in the final with a prize money of 50 thousand dollars.
Armaan will play these 3 finals
Apart from Mixed Doubles 8, Armaan Bhatia has also entered the finals of Men’s Singles 5 and Men’s Doubles 7. All these three matches will be played at intervals of some time on the same day, which will start with Men’s Singles at 5 pm. The finals of men’s doubles and mixed doubles are to be held at 7 pm and 8 pm. In men’s singles, Armaan Bhatia will face America’s top seeded player Dusty Boyer.
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Bhatia and Van Reek are in great form in this tournament. They had unilaterally defeated the Australian pair in the opening match. After taking lead of 7-0, both ended the match at 11-1. There was some competition in the second match. Despite this, both of them won the match 11-6.
Journey from tennis to pickleball
Armaan Bhatia used to play tennis earlier. But he did not get much success in domestic professional tennis. Because of this he sometimes played pickleball. Then due to Covid-19 the lockdown was imposed and going out stopped. Due to this, he started playing the game of pickleball more and more and then he fell in love with this game. Armaan told that whenever it rained, he used to play pickleball inside the house. He enjoyed this a lot.
In an interview with Hindustan Times, Armaan revealed that he did not take the decision to play it suddenly. After a lot of thinking and understanding for about 2 years, I switched from tennis to pickleball. Apart from the lockdown, hamstring injury was also a major reason for getting into pickleball. It was not very difficult for him to come into this. Because it is also played like tennis. He has expressed hope of winning all three finals.
