Padel, pickleball boom brings a new wave of sports injuries to physiotherapists

Padel is everyman’s racket sport—it shortened the tennis court, narrowed the net and lowered the entry barrier. People rushed to the courts, had a whole lot of fun—and some got hurt.

Like Yash Mathur. The 33-year-old from Delhi was playing padel for over a year when he felt a nagging pain in his leg: his Achilles tendon had again flared up. He had to take a break from the sport and spend a few weeks recovering from the injury.

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His physiotherapist has identified the muscles that need strengthening and built a routine of exercises around his padel sessions, which he now plays two-three times a week.

“Recovery is now harder for me than it was in my 20s when I played football,” says Mathur, VP–strategy, Nippon Audiotronix. “Warmups and post-match cooldowns are essential.”

He is part of a growing cohort of recreational players who are realising that padel’s relatively low barrier to entry does not necessarily mean low demands on the body.

A racquet sport that combines elements of squash and tennis, padel is typically played as a doubles game in an enclosed court. In India, it is gaining traction in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh and Bengaluru.

According to Hudle’s India Padel Report 2026, the number of courts in India has gone up to around 500 from 100 in 2023, while the number of players has grown to 100,000 from about 1,000.

As more and more Indians take up relatively easy racquet sports such as padel and pickleball, an unlikely cohort of professionals is getting more clients: physiotherapists, who point to a rise in ankle, wrist, knee and shoulder injuries. For some clinics, this is translating into a regular stream of patients requiring treatment.

LOVE ALL

Christopher Pedra, additional director, sports medicine, Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital, Mumbai, says padel isn’t a dangerous sport.

However, its accessibility brings a large recreational population onto the court and allows people with vastly different fitness and skill levels to play together.

Unlike sports like tennis, squash or badminton, where large differences in ability can make a game difficult to sustain, the smaller enclosed padel court, use of walls and the doubles format make it easier for beginners to play alongside more experienced players.

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That means some players are moving from a relatively low base of physical activity to unfamiliar movements that are performed repeatedly at high intensity. The sport requires a fair amount of acceleration, deceleration and change of direction.

“The low barrier for entry means the average officegoer or weekend warrior plays a couple of games of padel a week,” says Pedra. “The sport is highly addictive, and the community is crazy about it.”

Pedra says the number of injuries he sees as a result of padel has roughly doubled over the past two years. Among the recreational or “weekend warrior” patients he treats, he estimates padel could account for around 30% of cases.

Dr Paridhi Ojha, a Delhi-based sports physiotherapist, began noticing a rise in injuries due to padel last year.

“People do not go for a basic warmup. They think that because these are lesser-impact sports, they could just start playing. That’s the first mistake,” she says.

BREAK POINT

The problem is compounded by inappropriate footwear, with some recreational players turning up in running shoes or regular sneakers, and by the social nature of the sport, adds Ojha.

“People are using padel and pickleball as socialising options and considering them as easy sports, so they are overdoing them,” says Ojha. “They think they can play for hours. It starts with an hour, and then somebody else joins and suddenly they are playing for two hours. The body isn’t accustomed to that.”

Since the beginning of this year, Ojha has seen a jump in padel-related injuries. A similar pattern played out with pickleball earlier: two years ago, she saw a 150-200% increase in pickleball-related injuries.

For physiotherapists, each injury can mean multiple visits. Each session can cost around `2,500, while a 15-session rehabilitation package can cost around `20,000, depending on the clinic and physiotherapist.

The number of sessions depends on the nature of injury: a basic spasm may require one or two sessions, a strain five or six, while tendon and ligament injuries can require rehabilitation lasting 8 to 12 weeks.

Dr Richa Mishra, founder of Resurge Physiotherapy and Wellness Clinic in Pitampura, Delhi, says padel-related cases have become particularly visible over the past six months.

Ankle sprains and tennis elbow are among the most frequent complaints, followed by serious injuries such as rotator cuff tears.

Mishra estimates that padel players now account for 50-60% of sports-injury patients coming to her clinic. They are mostly between 20 and 45 years.

Her clinic is getting repeat cases, she says. “Players who don’t warm up properly or train specifically for the demands of their sport are more likely to suffer repeat injuries.”

Ojha recommends that players spend at least 15 minutes warming up and stretching before stepping on to the court, use appropriate footwear and work on core and cross-chain strength required for the sport.

The increase in patients does not necessarily mean padel has created an entirely new market for sports medicine.

“The fact that people are coming in with more padel injuries means I’m probably seeing fewer five-a-side football injuries because a lot of the people who used to do that have moved to padel,” says Pedra. “It’s not that it has created this wild new opportunity in medicine. It’s the same people who used to do other problematic things who have now changed to a new problematic thing.”

CHECK THE COURTS

The quality of courts may not have kept pace with the demand, says Suraj Veer Sharma, MD of Padel Pro India, a padel club network.

He says clubs have a responsibility to educate new players on appropriate footwear, warmups, techniques and safe progression into the sport.

“To minimise avoidable injuries, club owners should invest in quality infrastructure, regular court maintenance, and ensure consistent even playing surfaces.”

Keshav Singhania, 32, a chartered accountant who has been playing pickleball competitively for about two years, says he initially treated it as a recreational activity.

After a largely sedentary working day, he would turn up at the court and start playing without preparing his body for the lateral movements and overhead shots the sport demanded.

After three or four injuries, including an ankle ligament tear that took around 45 days to heal, his approach changed.

He plays four to five times a week, often for 60 to 90 minutes, but incorporates adequate warmup and plyometrics.

“I now appreciate a warmup much better than I did when I started playing,” he says.