In Conversation with Rohan Gajjar: Training, Coaching & the Future of Pickleball in India.
Pickleball in India is evolving rapidly. More players are competing, more tournaments are being held, and the overall standard of the game continues to rise.
But there is an important difference between simply playing more pickleball and actually training to become a better player.
We sat down with Rohan Gajjar to talk about his approach to coaching, what separates training from playing, the development of Indian pickleball, and the kind of training culture he hopes to build with LITA7.
How would you describe your overall philosophy towards coaching and training?
For me, coaching is not just about teaching someone how to hit a better shot. It’s about understanding the player in front of you—their strengths, weaknesses, personality and goals—and then building a training approach around that.
I also believe in keeping things simple. Players can get caught up trying to learn too many things at once. I’d rather focus on the fundamentals, build good habits and then progressively add layers to the game.
Ultimately, my job as a coach is to make the player more independent. I want them to eventually understand why they are doing something, rather than simply following instructions.
What separates someone who simply plays a lot of pickleball from someone who actually trains to improve?
Playing a lot doesn’t necessarily mean you’re improving.
There are players who have played hundreds of games but keep making the same mistakes because they aren’t consciously working on them. Training is different because there is a purpose behind what you’re doing.
You need to identify a weakness, work on it deliberately, put it under pressure and then take it into match situations.
The players who improve fastest are usually the ones willing to step outside their comfort zone and work on the things they aren’t naturally good at.
When you first assess a player, what are the main things you look at?
I look at several things. Technically, I want to understand their strokes, consistency, contact point and ability to control the ball.
But I also look at movement, balance, anticipation and, importantly, how they make decisions.
Sometimes you see a player who technically has a very good forehand, but they don’t know when to use it. That can be a bigger issue than the forehand itself.
I also try to understand how they think and react under pressure because that tells you a lot about what kind of training they need.
Is technique the most important part of pickleball, or do strategy, movement and decision-making eventually become more important?
Technique is the foundation, but as you get to a higher level, strategy and decision-making become increasingly important.
At beginner level, you need to learn how to control the ball. But once everyone around you can hit the ball consistently, the difference starts coming from what you do with that ball.
Where you position yourself, what shot you choose, when you attack, when you reset and how you construct a point become extremely important.
At the highest level, it’s often not about who can hit the hardest. It’s about who makes the better decision more consistently.
What are the most common mistakes you see players making when trying to improve?
One of the biggest mistakes is trying to hit harder before learning to control the ball.
Another is playing every shot as if it needs to win the point. Pickleball is very much about patience and creating the right opportunity.
I also see players focusing too much on what they want to do rather than what the situation requires.
And probably the biggest one is not working on their weaknesses. People naturally want to practice the shots they enjoy and are already good at. Improvement usually comes from doing the opposite.
How should training differ for a beginner, an intermediate tournament player and someone aspiring to play professionally?
The objective has to change at every level.
For a beginner, it’s about fundamentals, confidence, basic technique, movement and understanding the game.
For an intermediate tournament player, we start getting much more specific-patterns of play, shot selection, positioning, transition, partner communication and playing under pressure.
For someone aspiring to play professionally, everything becomes more detailed. You need technical consistency, tactical awareness, physical preparation, recovery, match analysis and a much more disciplined approach to training.
At that level, training can’t just be about showing up and playing. There needs to be a proper plan.
Coming from your background in high-level racquet sport and coaching, what surprised you most about pickleball?
The biggest surprise was how different the decision-making is despite the obvious similarities to tennis.
Coming from tennis, you initially think you understand racquet sports and can transfer a lot of those skills directly. And obviously there is a huge advantage in terms of hand-eye coordination, movement and understanding of the ball.
But pickleball has its own language and its own patterns. The kitchen, resets, dinking, third-shot decisions and the speed of hand battles completely change the way you construct a point.
I actually found that very exciting. It gave me something new to learn as both a player and coach.
Pickleball in India has grown incredibly quickly. How do you see the standard of Indian players today compared with two or three years ago?
The improvement has been massive.
The level of awareness around the game has changed, the number of serious players has increased and there is much more exposure to international-level competition.
Two or three years ago, there were relatively few players approaching the sport with a genuinely professional mindset. Today, you have a much bigger pool of players training seriously, competing regularly and studying the international game.
The next step is to convert that growth into depth. We have some very good players in India, but we need a much larger base of players who can compete internationally at a consistently high level.
I think we’re moving in the right direction, but we’re still early in the journey.
What is Indian pickleball doing well, and what is still missing?
The biggest positive is the enthusiasm. There is an incredible appetite for pickleball in India, and that’s something you can’t manufacture.
We’re also seeing more academies, coaches, tournaments and professional leagues, which is all positive.
Where I think we still have work to do is creating a proper long-term pathway.
We need stronger junior development, better coach education, more structured training programmes and more opportunities for players to compete internationally.
We also need to move away from the idea that playing more tournaments automatically makes you a better player. Competition is important, but it needs to sit within a proper training structure.
If we can create that ecosystem from junior level all the way through to professional level, that’s when you’ll really see Indian pickleball take another big step forward.
Can India produce players capable of competing consistently with the world’s best?
Absolutely. I don’t see any reason why we can’t.
We have the population, sporting talent and now, increasingly, the interest and infrastructure. But talent alone isn’t enough.
To consistently compete with the world’s best, players need access to high-quality coaching, training partners, strength and conditioning, recovery, sports science and, most importantly, regular exposure to international competition.
You can’t expect a player to reach world-class level by only competing within the Indian ecosystem. They need to travel, play the best players, lose, learn and come back better.
I think India has the potential to produce world-class players. The question is whether we can build the right system around those players.
With so many tournaments taking place, are Indian players sometimes competing too much and training too little?
Yes, I definitely think this can happen.
Tournaments are exciting, and obviously players want to compete, win medals and improve their rankings. But competition and training serve different purposes.
A tournament exposes your game. Training actually develops it.
If you’re playing tournament after tournament without taking time to analyse what went wrong and work on those weaknesses, you’re potentially just repeating the same mistakes at a higher frequency.
Especially for younger or developing players, I would much rather see a balanced calendar where they have proper training blocks, recovery periods and then targeted competitions.
You don’t need to play every tournament to become a better player.
What role should fitness, recovery and off-court preparation play?
A huge role.
As the level gets higher, pickleball becomes increasingly physical. Speed, agility, reaction time, balance and the ability to repeat high-intensity movements all matter.
But fitness isn’t just about being able to run around the court. Strength, mobility, injury prevention, recovery, sleep and nutrition all contribute to performance.
Players sometimes only think about preparation when they are on court. If you’re serious about competing at a high level, what you do off the court is equally important.
How important is matchplay training compared with drilling?
You need both.
Drilling allows you to isolate a particular skill and get a high number of repetitions. That’s where you build technique and consistency.
But a drill doesn’t always replicate the pressure and uncertainty of a match.
In a match, you’re making decisions based on the score, your opponent, your partner, your physical state and what’s happening in that particular moment. That’s where you learn whether you can actually execute what you’ve practised.
So I don’t see drilling and matchplay as competing with each other. Good training should connect the two: learn the skill, practise it, then put it under pressure.
If you could give an ambitious Indian pickleball player three pieces of advice for the next 12 months, what would they be?
First, get a proper training plan. Don’t just play more. Know what you’re trying to improve.
Second, become obsessed with the basics. At a high level, small technical and movement improvements make a huge difference.
Third, compete strategically. Play tournaments, but don’t let tournaments become your entire training programme. Use competition to test what you’re working on and learn from it.
And I’d add one more thing: be patient. Pickleball is growing incredibly quickly, but becoming genuinely good at a sport still takes time.
Finally, what kind of player and training culture are you hoping to develop through your work with LITA7?
I want to develop players who are technically sound, tactically intelligent and physically prepared, but also players who understand the game.
At LITA7, I don’t want training to be just about hitting balls for an hour. I want players to understand why they’re doing a particular drill, how it translates into a match and what they need to do to keep improving.
The culture I want to create is one where players are competitive but also curious. Where it’s okay to make mistakes, because mistakes are part of learning-but it’s not okay to keep making the same mistake without trying to understand it.
Ultimately, I want LITA7 to help build better players and, hopefully, contribute in some small way to building a stronger pickleball ecosystem in India.
