Why Everyone Suddenly Wants to Play Padel and Pickleball

Two racket sports. Two very different origins. One surprisingly similar reason for exploding around the world.

A few years ago, if you told someone you played padel, they might have asked whether you meant paddle tennis.

Say pickleball, and there was a good chance they had never heard of it.

Today, the conversation is very different.

Padel courts are appearing across major Indian cities. Pickleball is moving from community courts into professional leagues. Bollywood stars are playing it. Cricketers are picking up paddles. Investors are building teams.

And suddenly, everyone seems to know someone who plays.

So what happened?

The answer isn't simply that two new sports became fashionable.

They were almost perfectly designed for the way people want to play sports today.

Two games that were never supposed to become this big

Padel began in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1969, when Enrique Corcuera created a smaller tennis-style court surrounded by walls. From Mexico, the sport travelled to Spain and Argentina, where it eventually became a sporting obsession.

Pickleball has an even more unlikely origin story.

In 1965, three friends on Bainbridge Island, Washington — Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum — improvised a game for their families using a badminton court, table-tennis paddles and a perforated plastic ball.

Neither was created with global professional sport in mind.

But both had one enormous advantage:

You can start playing almost immediately.

They're ridiculously easy to get into

That's probably the biggest secret.

Watch professional padel and it looks complicated. The ball comes off the glass, players move constantly and rallies can become spectacular.

But give four beginners a court and a racket, and they're playing within minutes.

Pickleball is even more approachable. The court is smaller, the paddle is easy to handle and the slower ball gives beginners more time to keep a rally going.

You don't need years of coaching before the sport becomes fun.

And then comes the part traditional fitness activities can't always offer:

a social reason to keep coming back.

Four people book a padel court.

A group organises a pickleball session.

Someone brings another friend.

And suddenly, your workout has become your weekend plan.

That's a powerful growth engine.

Then Bollywood and cricket got involved

This is where things really changed in India.

Once celebrities started appearing on these courts, padel and pickleball stopped looking like obscure international sports and started looking like something you might actually want to try.

Alia Bhatt has shared herself playing pickleball, while other Bollywood personalities have also been spotted playing padel and pickleball.

And then came cricket.

In 2025, Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma played pickleball with the RCB squad during a team-bonding session, alongside players and staff.

But perhaps the clearest sign that padel is becoming more than a celebrity hobby came from MS Dhoni.

In August 2025, Dhoni launched the first 7Padel centre in Chennai's Palavakkam. The 20,000-square-foot facility has three padel courts, a pickleball court, swimming pool, gym, recovery room, café and sauna.

And Dhoni's involvement went further. In January 2026, his 7Padel venture merged with PadelPark India to create a larger platform aimed at expanding padel infrastructure across the country.

That's when a sport stops looking niche.

People don't just see athletes playing it. They see people they recognise playing it — and building businesses around it.

And now there's serious money behind the games

This is where the "fad" argument gets harder to make.

Padel now has Premier Padel, the sport's global professional tour, with Major, P1 and P2-level events. The 2026 season continues to expand internationally, with tournament upgrades bringing additional ranking points and prize-money opportunities.

Pickleball has built its own professional ecosystem through tours such as the PPA Tour. Its 2026 season carries more than $5.23 million in combined prize money and appearance fees.

These aren't backyard games anymore.

They're developing rankings, professional tours, franchises, sponsors, broadcasters and serious prize pools.

India might be the most interesting story

India has a natural advantage here.

We're already a racket-sport country.

Millions grew up playing badminton. Tennis and table tennis are established. The basic hand-eye coordination required for these new sports isn't foreign to us.

Padel is still young in India, but the infrastructure is expanding — and the involvement of people like Dhoni suggests that the opportunity is being viewed as more than a passing trend.

Pickleball may be moving even faster.

The Indian Pickleball Association currently lists 50,000+ players, 500+ professional players, 100+ ranking tournaments and coverage across 27 states.

India now has franchise competitions too, including the World Pickleball League, while celebrities such as Samantha Ruth Prabhu have entered the ownership side of the sport with the Chennai franchise.

The infrastructure is growing.

The celebrities are playing.

The leagues are arriving.

And the money is beginning to follow.

So, is this just another sports trend?

Probably not.

Padel and pickleball aren't growing because they're replacing tennis or badminton.

They're growing because they're different.

They're easy enough to learn, social enough to become a weekly habit, competitive enough to keep you improving and entertaining enough to watch.

And India is still very early in the story.

Today, you might be wondering why everyone suddenly wants to play.

A few years from now, the more interesting question could be:

Why didn't we start earlier?