Courts, Clubs and Community: How Padel is winning over India's youth, with MS Dhoni's backing

The Hudle India Padel Report 2026 has backed the domestic market for the sport to multiply tenfold from $25-30 million by 2036

From a single court in Bengaluru in 2017 to nearly 500 across the country today, padel has grown 100 times over in just three years, faster than any other racket sport in India.

What began as an import played mostly by tennis and squash regulars looking for something new has, in less than a decade, turned into one of the country’s most closely watched sporting businesses.

Part of its pull lies in how effortlessly it has caught on with a younger, Instagram-friendly crowd: it’s social, quick to pick up, and easy to turn into a night out rather than just a workout, which has made it something of a Gen Z favourite across India’s youth.

Dedicated clubs, growing investor interest and a rapidly expanding player-base all point to the same conclusion: this is no longer a passing trend.

The numbers behind the boom

Player numbers have moved from a few hundred in 2022 to nearly a lakh now, and courts have multiplied from under 100 just three years back.

A report tracking these numbers, the Hudle India Padel Report 2026, compiled with CAA Portas, pegs the current domestic padel market at $25-30 million and expects it to multiply tenfold, to $250-300 million, by 2036.

“Padel is one of the fastest-growing sports in the country,” Mahesh Bhupathi, Promoter, World Padel League, tennis legend, and an early investor in Hudle, says in the report. “We’re still at ground zero, and there’s plenty of scope for growth.”

Unlike cricket or badminton, padel has no long grassroots history to fall back on in India. What’s driven it instead is private capital, urban real estate and word-of-mouth among a racket-sport-playing population estimated at over 30 million.

Backing from a padel investor

MS Dhoni, 7 Padel Founder and a cricket legend, frames the sport’s doubles format and social character as exactly what a country still short on infrastructure needs. “In a country with over 30 million racket sport players, Tier-1 cities have already shown how quickly padel can grow.

“The next step is taking that momentum into newer markets and making the sport accessible beyond the metros. Once courts are available, people will take to it naturally, padel is social, it’s played in doubles, and it’s built around community, which suits India,” he said in the report.

Building a business, not just courts

That emphasis on community is also changing how venues are being run. Suhail Narain, co-founder and CEO of Hudle, describes a mindset shift among operators: “Operators no longer think of themselves as padel operators. They think of themselves as racket-sport-and-wellness operators, and padel is one product line.

“Courts are easy to replicate. Clubs are not. The best venues feel like a hangout, where games, people and energy compound,” he adds.

Booking activity backs him up, with just 40 venues nationally responsible for three-quarters of all padel bookings, a sign that adding a court is easy but building a place people want to return to is not.

The road ahead

What’s driving this isn’t a single push but a convergence: cheap urban real estate looking for a second life, a doubles-friendly format that suits India’s love of social sport, and boldface names willing to put money behind it early.

Corporate leagues, weekend leagues and school-level programmes are now widening the base beyond the metros where the sport first took hold.

If the current pace of court-building and investment holds, padel looks less like a passing urban fad and more like the newest addition to India’s everyday sporting vocabulary, one that has moved from a single Bengaluru court to a genuine, if still early, industry in under a decade.

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