The measurements he had taken in 2020 were of the backyard behind his parents' home in east Bangalore. Generous by city standards — a long, narrow rectangle that had served, over the years, as a garden, a storage area, a cricket pitch for cousins during festivals, and finally as an empty stretch of cracked concrete the family used for nothing in particular. He measured it at 62 feet by 31 feet. The USA Pickleball standard for a singles/doubles court with adequate run-off is 60 feet by 30 feet. It fit.
He returned to California that December. The court idea stayed back in Bangalore — more of an intention than a plan — for the next two and a half years. What finally moved it forward was a conversation on a pickleball court in Sunnyvale in early 2023. A colleague mentioned that proper pickleball courts were being built in Indian cities now, with acrylic surfaces and regulation dimensions. He went home that evening and started searching.
The challenge was not the space or the product. It was the distance. He was 12,000 km away. His parents, who would supervise the construction, were retired and not familiar with sports surface specifications. Every decision about the court — colour, markings, equipment, schedule — would have to travel across a 10.5-hour time zone gap, be explained to a 68-year-old retired engineer who had never played pickleball, and get confirmed before any work could move forward.
"My father called me during the site visit. He was holding the phone so I could see the backyard on video. He said: 'This is where we used to park the Maruti 800. You want to turn it into an American sport?' I said: 'Yes, Appa. Exactly.'"
The Client, Software Engineer, Sunnyvale, CaliforniaThe first site visit was attended by the client's father. He came with a printed checklist his son had sent from California at 2 AM IST. Our representative photographed the backyard from every angle, sent the images on a shared link within two hours, and joined a video call that started at 9:30 AM Bangalore time — 8 PM the previous evening in California.
The acrylic system was the right choice for a reason any serious pickleball player would understand: ball bounce consistency. Acrylic applied over an M20 PCC base with 70mm GSB produces a hard-court response that closely mirrors the USAPA hard-court tournaments the client was used to playing on in California. PP tiles have their advantages in other situations, but they produce a slightly softer response that also changes with Bangalore's monsoon humidity. For a client who cared about playing feel, acrylic was the only choice.
Colour selection needed a physical sample. Two acrylic colour swatches — Dark Green for the main court, Light Blue for the kitchen zone (the non-volley zone at the net, standard in pickleball but unusual in Indian court design) — were couriered to the parents' home. The father held the samples against the compound wall in afternoon light and described what he saw to his son on video call. "The green looks like forest," he said. "The blue looks like sky." His son approved both.
Construction began on a Thursday morning in September, just after Bangalore's monsoon had retreated. The existing backyard concrete was broken out in two days — it was irregular and too thin to serve as a proper base. The GSB layer was compacted on Days 3 and 4. The M20 PCC pour happened on a Saturday morning, giving the slab a full week of curing before acrylic could go on.
All images are illustrative placeholders. Actual project photographs pending client review on his next visit to Bangalore.
The client came back to Bangalore for Diwali that year, fourteen days after the court was handed over. He arrived on a Friday evening, slept, and was on the court at 6 AM Saturday morning while the rest of the house was still asleep. He spent an hour hitting against the compound wall — testing the bounce, the grip, the court response in Bangalore's dry October air. He sent a photo to the California group chat at 6:47 AM Bangalore time — 9:17 PM Friday night in Sunnyvale. The caption: "court plays exactly right."
By the third day of his visit, six neighbours had been introduced to the sport. By the fifth day, a WhatsApp group called "BYC Pickleball" — short for Backyard Court — already existed. By the end of the two-week visit, twelve people had played at least twice. A weekly Sunday morning session was set up with a rotation schedule the client made on a spreadsheet and shared with the group before flying back to California.
The court runs every Sunday morning now. The client's father plays twice a week and watches pickleball tournament highlight reels on YouTube on Friday evenings. The client's mother — who had said throughout the construction that she did not understand the point of this sport — plays on alternate Thursdays and has won two of the four informal house tournaments the group has run so far.
"I came home in December and the court was full at 7 AM. Twelve neighbours. My mother was keeping score. I do not think I ever loved this sport more than I did in that moment."
The Client, Software Engineer, Sunnyvale, California
Product specifications: 8-Layer Acrylic Coating at ₹65/sqft, M20 Grade PCC Base at ₹90/sqft. 3-year surface warranty, 5–7 year lifespan under normal outdoor conditions. Acrylic colors: Dark Green and Light Blue from the 7-color ChampCourts palette. Court dimensions per USA Pickleball and IFP standards (1,800 sqft with run-off). All project details and quotes shared with client consent. Client identity and property location withheld at client request.