Somewhere in the last couple of years or so, the person who once considered walking to the fridge during ad breaks a workout has started saying things like "I have a court booked at 7." If your group chat has recently been filled up with paddle emojis, blurry action shots and someone insisting they "almost had a great rally, no seriously," you are witnessing it too. Padel and pickleball have gone from niche curiosities to genuine obsessions in Indian cities, and the reasons are a lot more interesting than "it's the new thing."
Bollywood Stars and Cricketers Have Picked a New Favourite Sport
India does not casually adopt new sports, so when film stars and cricketers show up, you know it is serious. Aamir Khan has taken to the court at a World Pickleball League match, Karan Johar signed on as a brand ambassador ahead of the India Open, and Riteish and Genelia Deshmukh now own a team, Pune United. Samantha Ruth Prabhu owns the Chennai Super Champs, calling it part of a larger mission to get people moving, and filmmaker Atlee owns the Bengaluru Jawans. Cricket has its own stake too. Rishabh Pant has backed a team, and former India captain MS Dhoni is a partner in 7Padel MS Dhoni, now merged with PadelPark India to scale padel courts and coaching across the country. Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt are among the celebrities reportedly drawn to padel, and reports out of Delhi NCR place Virat Kohli and Ashneer Grover on the pickleball courts. This is not a one-off photo op, it is actual team ownership and actual rivalries between people who usually only compete for headlines.
Padel’s Boom Across Indian Cities Has the Tournaments to Prove It
Padel has an actual scoreboard to back its buzz. This year alone, Mumbai hosted an official Federación Internacional de Pádel (FIP) Bronze tour event in January, part of the same global professional padel calendar that runs through Spain and Argentina, followed by an FIP Silver tournament at VPadel Arena in April. Come August, the World Padel League returned to Mumbai's Dome at SVP Stadium for its biggest season yet, six franchises, players flown in from Spain, Argentina and Brazil, in a format built to look and feel exactly like the IPL of padel. Delhi has its own FIP event on the calendar for later this year too. MS Dhoni has put real weight behind the sport off the field as well, partnering on padel infrastructure across the country through a merger between his own venture and PadelPark India.
Underneath the marquee events sits a grassroots circuit most people have not clocked yet. The Indian Padel Championship has been running a talent hunt across six cities, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Ahmedabad, with local players competing to represent their city at a national final, and what looked like a passing trend starts to look a lot more like actual infrastructure.
Pickleball Is Spreading Across Indian Cities One Court at a Time
Pickleball took a simpler route: it made saying yes easy. It can be played on an existing badminton or tennis court with a portable net, the rules click within a single session, and the underhand serve means nobody is stuck at the starting line. Doubles keeps it social, so it spreads fast through friend groups and workplaces. Add the city-based franchise teams above for the competitive crowd, and a weekend experiment starts to look like a full ecosystem.
Also, It Is Very Instagrammable
There is another reason these sports have exploded that has nothing to do with fitness at all: they simply look good on camera. Glass-walled courts, colourful paddles, a slow-motion smash, it is practically built for a reel. Courts across the country have quietly become a favourite backdrop for content creators shooting everything from fitness reels to comedy sketches, less because the sport is trending and more because it gives them somewhere new and visually interesting to film. If you have scrolled through five pickleball or padel reels before finishing your morning coffee, that is not an accident, it is a genuinely photogenic sport doing exactly what the algorithm was always going to reward.
Whether you are drawn in by the celebrity leagues, the community circuit, or simply the promise of a workout that does not feel like one, the only real prerequisite is showing up. Pack a paddle, a spare ball, and a proper pickleball bag to keep it all together, and you are already further along than most of that group chat still debating whether to book a court.
