Controlled Chaos and the Classroom: How Wes Gabrielsen Masterminded Dilli Dillwale’s World Pickleball League Triumph
By Chris Beaumont, Editor-in-Chief
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The heat and humidity of Mumbai can be oppressive, thick enough to drain a professional athlete in a matter of minutes. When you combine those conditions with the relentless format of the World Pickleball League (WPBL)—gruelling 15-minute timed blocks with a mere ten seconds between points—the physical toll is immense.
So, when Dilli Dillwale dropped their opening women’s singles match in the WPBL Season 2 Championship to the heavy favourites, the Chennai Super Champs, by a staggering margin of 27-3, the situation looked dire. For most teams, a 24-point deficit straight out of the gate is a death knell. But Wes Gabrielsen, the pride of Salem, Oregon, and the head coach of Dilli Dillwale, didn’t see a collapse. He saw an engine starting.
Gabrielsen had spent months preparing his roster for these exact moments. A 2022 Pickleball Hall of Fame inductee, an 11-time USA National Champion, and a six-time Canadian National Champion, Gabrielsen knows exactly what it takes to navigate the highest echelons of the sport. He knew that Alejandra Lopez, his singles player who took the brunt of that 27-3 loss against top-tier talent like Kat Stewart, was doing exactly what was needed: generating energy.
“We viewed it as if… our team is a train, we’re a vehicle, that first match is the engine that gets us going,” Gabrielsen explained. Even in the face of a blowout, he pulled Alejandra aside after a “pickle play” substitution, looked at the clock, and simply said, “Give me the best three and a half minutes of your life right now”.
Dilli Dillwale stormed back to win the final 3-2, pulling off an incredible upset. But to understand how Gabrielsen orchestrated one of the most dramatic comebacks in global pickleball history, you have to look past his Hall of Fame resume and examine his 13 years spent in a high school social studies classroom.
The Teacher Turns Tactician
Before the WPBL draft had even fully settled, Gabrielsen was back in his element: teaching. Recognising that drafting a diverse, international roster of elite players required more than just rolling a ball out onto the court, he scheduled one-hour Zoom calls with each of his eight players.
“I have a framework. I’ve got a mission that I want each team, each class to follow, but obviously, within those classes, you have different personalities,” Gabrielsen noted, drawing a direct line from his teaching days to his professional coaching. He understood that the way he needed to motivate veteran American player Erik Lange was vastly different from how he needed to approach a highly coachable international star like Mihai Kwon.
This meticulous pre-work meant that before Dilli Dillwale ever set foot in Mumbai, every player knew their role. Managing egos on a professional roster where playing time is limited can fracture a team, but Gabrielsen’s transparency prevented any discontent. Players like Rob Cassidy and Anuja Meheshwari flew halfway across the world knowing they would see very limited court time. Yet, Cassidy fully embraced his role as an assistant coach in the dugout, becoming what his teammates called “the heartbeat of our team,” while Anuja focused on making the starting roster better every single day in practice.
Rules of Engagement: No Timeouts and “Pickle Play”
The WPBL is a uniquely chaotic environment. Unlike Major League Pickleball in the United States, coaches are not allowed to call timeouts during matches. This lack of a safety valve forces teams to rely entirely on their preparation.
Gabrielsen had his squad practice highly specific scenarios before arriving in India: how to shift their style of play when up by two minutes, and how to adapt when trailing with two minutes left on the clock. He even implemented a sideline signal system for players needing to refocus or shift tactics mid-match.
While some teams allegedly utilised the challenge system as a form of gamesmanship to buy their players a breather in the Mumbai heat, Gabrielsen leaned heavily into the WPBL’s “pickle play” rule—a mechanic allowing mid-match substitutions. In singles, where the physical demands were highest, Gabrielsen warned his players to be ready to sub in at a moment’s notice. He used Max Manthou (affectionately known in pickleball circles as “Purple Jesus”) to give his Vietnamese star, Hien Truong, a critical rest against Chennai’s Nam Lee, even when Hien was leading.
But perhaps the greatest tactical adjustment came in the decisive men’s doubles match. Gabrielsen’s designated “closers” were Lange and Manthou, two players who train together in the Portland, Oregon area under coach Travis RDE. The duo had struggled earlier in the tournament, suffering a 13-7 defeat to Chennai’s Quan and Tomassi by playing too safely.
Heading into the final, the players approached Gabrielsen with a radical adjustment. They wanted to embrace “controlled chaos,” unleashing Manthou to attack aggressively. Gabrielsen gave them the green light. The result was a dramatic, championship-clinching victory that served as a storybook ending for Lange, who was playing in his final major professional pickleball tournament for the foreseeable future.
The Evolution of the Game and the “Spanish Fighting Drill”
The level of play in Mumbai was a far cry from Gabrielsen’s introduction to the sport. He first picked up a paddle in a 1998 middle school physical education class, playing on a wooden gym floor with wooden paddles and a lightning-fast dura ball. It wasn’t until 2011, after his competitive tennis career ended, that a friend handed him a modern paddle and he realised the sport’s potential.
Gabrielsen dominated the professional circuit from 2014 to 2020, yet he is remarkably candid about where he stands in the current landscape. “The amount of athleticism and the amount of youth… There is no way, even if I train all day every day, that I can go pick up a paddle now at 40 and go be in the top tier of players like I was,” he admitted. However, thanks to advancements in paddle technology and continuous refinement of his game, he firmly believes his actual skill level today is significantly higher than it was during his absolute prime in 2016 alongside partner Kyle Yates.
To bridge that gap and prepare his Dilli Dillwale squad for the gruelling rallies in Mumbai, Gabrielsen imported a brutal training method from clay-court tennis, historically practiced by Spanish legends like Rafael Nadal and Carlos Moya. He calls it the “Spanish Fighting Drill”.
In this drill, players engage in a full-court singles rally. The catch? Every time the ball crosses the net, a point is added to a cumulative pot. If a rally lasts for 20 shots and a player wins the point, they immediately collect all 20 points. “It focuses on mental toughness but also physical endurance,” Gabrielsen explained. He ran his WPBL squad through this exact drill at their training camp in the States, knowing the humid Indian conditions would demand long, grindy points.
The Survival of the Soft Game
As paddle technology advances and global athleticism skyrockets—evidenced by the explosive movement of Vietnamese players like Hing and Nam Lee—critics frequently suggest that pickleball’s traditional “soft game” is destined for obsolescence. Gabrielsen vehemently disagrees.
Looking at the pinnacle of the sport on the American PPA tour, Gabrielsen points out that players like Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio don’t win by overpowering opponents; they win through elite ball control. “Up to a certain point, a pro player, everyone’s hands are good,” Gabrielsen said. “And the paddle technology doesn’t let you rip a ball through anyone at the highest level. So, it becomes a chess match”. The champions are the ones who can flawlessly execute resets, keep the ball down, and transition from defence to offence seamlessly.
This philosophy was heavily drilled into Dilli Dillwale in Mumbai. The official WPBL ball was jumpy and springy, making defensive play incredibly difficult. Gabrielsen spent the tournament working with his players on making contact closer to their bodies and using their physical frame to lift the ball for resets, rather than pushing through with their arms. He also encouraged the strategic use of his own signature shot—the backhand slice return—to counteract the sliding court conditions, provided players could hit it deep enough to prevent easy topspin counters.
The View from the Peak
When looking back at the 2026 World Pickleball League, the defining memory for Gabrielsen isn’t the sight of the clock hitting zero in the final match, nor is it the stoic but supportive presence of team owner and cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar celebrating the victory.
Instead, Gabrielsen’s mind immediately goes to the team’s very first full practice in India. Dilli Dillwale had faced early adversity when Trang was delayed due to visa issues. But when she finally arrived and the entire roster, alongside medical staff Dr. Marcus and his physical therapist wife Ryan, and team manager Denel, finally assembled on the court, something clicked.
“Once we got our family, our whole Dilli family there… and the energy was, you know, the full mission was starting and clicking, I just knew it was going to be something special whether we won the title or not,” Gabrielsen recalled. He watched American players marvel at Mihai’s elite reset abilities and Hien’s dominant singles play, watching global borders melt away into a unified front.
Gabrielsen has long operated by a simple motivational quote: You have to visit a lot of valleys before you reach the peak. In Mumbai, through a 27-3 opening loss, punishing humidity, and a chaotic, timeout-free format, Dilli Dillwale visited those valleys. But thanks to a coach who views the pickleball court as a classroom, they ended their journey standing firmly on the summit.
Chris Beaumont
Founder and Editor-in-ChiefChris Beaumont is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Pickleball Magazine. Chris follows the global game closely, reporting on the latest news, developments, stories and tournaments from all five continents. He also hosts the World Pickleball Podcast, interviewing people at…
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