Injury Data · Updated July 2026

Padel Injury Statistics2026: Every Number, Sourced

The most complete, fully-cited collection of padel injury data anywhere — incidence rates, body-part breakdowns, padel vs tennis, and the eye-injury numbers nobody talks about. Every statistic links to its peer-reviewed source.

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85.4%

Injury prevalence among padel players — vs 39–46% in tennis

3–8

Injuries per 1,000h — 3 in training, 8 in match play

In short: padel players get injured at roughly 3 injuries per 1,000 hours of training and 8 per 1,000 match hours, with studies reporting that 40–95% of players have been injured. The elbow is the most common site (30–74% of injuries), tendon and muscle injuries dominate, and padel carries a measurably higher injury prevalence than tennis (85.4% vs 39–46%). Padel is also now the #1 cause of sports-related eye injuries in Swedish registry data. Every figure below is linked to its peer-reviewed source.

The 10 Key Padel Injury Statistics

The numbers that define injury risk in padel — each one sourced

  1. 1. Padel players sustain approximately 3 injuries per 1,000 hours of training and 8 injuries per 1,000 match hours, according to a systematic review of 8 studies covering 2,022 players. (Source: Dahmen et al. 2023, BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine)
  2. 2. Between 40% and 95% of padel players report having suffered an injury, depending on the study population and recall period. (Source: Dahmen et al. 2023, systematic review)
  3. 3. Padel shows an injury prevalence of 85.4% — substantially higher than tennis (39–46%) and squash (58%) in a comparative systematic review. (Source: Comparative systematic review, 2025)
  4. 4. The elbow is the most commonly injured site in padel, accounting for 30–74% of injuries across studies — the classic “padel elbow” (lateral epicondylalgia). (Source: Comparative systematic review, 2025)
  5. 5. Tendon injuries make up 44–49% and muscle injuries 27–34% of all padel injuries — overuse dominates over acute trauma. (Source: Comparative systematic review, 2025)
  6. 6. A 2025 German Level-1 trauma centre study of 234 players measured 4.03 injuries per 1,000 hours of exposure, with the lower leg/ankle/foot the most affected region (18%). (Source: Meyer et al. 2025, J Sports Med Phys Fitness)
  7. 7. Among recreational players, 36.5% were injured in the previous year (2.81 injuries per 1,000 hours), with 53.5% of injuries in the lower limb. (Source: Cross-sectional study 2025, Physical Therapy in Sport)
  8. 8. Padel became the number-one cause of sports-related eye injuries in a Swedish regional registry by 2021, accounting for 20% of 255 recorded sports eye injuries — 4% with permanent effects. (Source: Kasiga et al. 2024, Acta Ophthalmologica)
  9. 9. Professional players get injured significantly more often than amateurs (P<0.001), and players with no previous racquet-sport background suffer significantly more elbow injuries (P<0.001). (Source: Meyer et al. 2025)
  10. 10. Neuromuscular warm-up programmes (the FIFA 11+ model) reduce overall sports injuries by roughly 30% (RR 0.70) in meta-analyses — no padel-specific programme has yet been validated, and researchers explicitly call for one. (Source: Sadigursky et al. 2017, BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil)

Injury Rates: How Often Do Padel Players Get Hurt?

Incidence per 1,000 hours across the peer-reviewed literature

Injury incidence in padel clusters remarkably tightly across independent studies: 2.8–4.0 injuries per 1,000 hours of play. Match play is riskier than training — the 2023 systematic review reports the rate jumps from 3 per 1,000 training hours to 8 per 1,000 match hours, consistent with the explosive lunges, smashes and direction changes competition demands.
  1. 11. Match play carries roughly 2.7× the injury rate of training (8 vs 3 injuries per 1,000 hours). (Source: Dahmen et al. 2023)
  2. 12. A 2026 scoping review across 14 studies and 3,581 players confirms overuse injuries and the upper limb dominate padel injury patterns. (Source: Scoping review 2026, Applied Sciences)
  3. 13. Among Chilean amateur players, 53.8% reported an injury within just 6 months. (Source: Cross-sectional study, PMC 2025)

Which Body Parts Get Injured Most?

Elbow first, then knee, ankle, calf and shoulder

The padel injury map is distinctive: unlike tennis (shoulder-dominant) or football (knee/ankle), padel concentrates damage in the elbow — driven by the continental grip, wrist snap on the bandeja/víbora, and players arriving without racquet-sport conditioning. Below the waist, the calf (“tennis leg”), Achilles, knee and ankle carry the acute injury load. Full guides: padel elbow, knee pain, ankle pain, calf injuries.
  1. 14. Elbow injuries account for 30–74% of all padel injuries — the widest and most consistent finding in the literature. (Source: Comparative systematic review, 2025)
  2. 15. In the German trauma-centre cohort, the lower leg/ankle/foot was the most affected region (18%), and among non-professionals the knee led at 19.6%. (Source: Meyer et al. 2025)
  3. 16. In recreational players, 53.5% of injuries affect the lower limb — ankle sprains, calf tears and Achilles problems dominate the acute picture. (Source: Physical Therapy in Sport, 2025)
  4. 17. Among young padel players, the knee is the most commonly injured site, at 0.53 injuries per player per week of recall. (Source: Youth study, MDPI Sports 2025)

Padel vs Tennis vs Squash

The comparative injury picture

MetricPadelTennisSquash
Injury prevalence85.4%39–46%58%
Most-injured siteElbow (30–74%)Shoulder / elbowLower limb
Dominant tissueTendon 44–49%MixedMuscle/ligament
Why is padel riskier? The comparative review points at padel’s unique demands: enclosed-court rebounds forcing sudden direction changes, a heavy overhead shot repertoire on a short court, and — crucially — a flood of new players without racquet-sport conditioning, who suffer significantly more elbow injuries (see stat 9). See our padel elbow vs tennis elbow guide.

Eye Injuries: Padel’s Overlooked Emergency

The numbers behind the sport’s most serious preventable injury

  1. 18. A padel smash can propel the ball at up to 130 km/h, and the ball’s ~6.5 cm diameter closely matches the human eye socket — meaning it can strike the eyeball directly. (Source: University of Gothenburg, 2021)
  2. 19. In an Italian survey of 583 padel players, 10.3% reported ocular trauma, and roughly a quarter of those had lasting visual consequences. (Source: Nature Eye, 2026)
  3. 20. Certified polycarbonate sports eyewear reduces the risk of severe eye injury by approximately 90%. (Source: American Academy of Ophthalmology)
Protective eyewear is the single highest-impact purchase in padel. See our evidence-based padel eye protection guide.
You know the feeling — everyone at your club has a story about an elbow that never quite healed or an ankle that went on the glass. Most players don’t realise the numbers behind those stories: padel’s injury prevalence is roughly double tennis’s. What actually works is knowing the data and training the weak links before they fail — we’ve been through it, and that’s why every number on this page links to a real study.

Who Gets Injured?

Pros vs amateurs, newcomers, youth — and the German data

  1. 21. Professionals are injured significantly more often than amateurs (P<0.001) — higher exposure and intensity outweigh better conditioning. (Source: Meyer et al. 2025)
  2. 22. Players without a previous racquet-sport background suffer significantly more elbow injuries (P<0.001) — technique matters as much as tissue capacity. (Source: Meyer et al. 2025)
  3. 23. Young players sustain 0.53 injuries per player per week of recall, with the knee most affected — load management matters early. (Source: MDPI Sports, 2025)

The Sport Is Exploding — So Is the Injury Pool

Market context: why these numbers matter more every year

  1. 24. Global player counts disagree by 15 million depending on who is counting: Playtomic reports 19.4 million players and 58,300 courts, while the FIP’s World Padel Report estimates 35 million+ players across 150 nations. Both are honest about the gap — treat every “padel has X million players” claim accordingly. (Sources: Playtomic Global Padel Report 2026 (with PwC Strategy&) · FIP World Padel Report 2025)
  2. 25. Britain passed 1,000,000 padel players in May 2026 — up from 400,000 at the end of 2024, 129,000 in 2023 and just 15,000 in 2019 — playing on 1,825 courts across 551 venues. (Source: LTA, 15 May 2026)
  3. 26. Germany has 2,141 padel courts across 658 facilities as of August 2026 — 58.3% of them indoor. Nordrhein-Westfalen leads with 663 courts; Berlin is the biggest city with 101. (Quelle: PadelCompass Padel-Atlas, Stand August 2026)
  4. 27. Global search interest in padel grew +49% year-on-year and hit its all-time high in September 2025. (Source: SGI Europe, 2025)
  5. 28. Padel overtook tennis in English Wikipedia readership in 2025 — 819,169 article views against 552,205 — and German-language readers now look padel up 2.7× more often than tennis (292,269 vs 109,657 views). October is the German-language attention peak. (Source: PadelRevive analysis of the Wikimedia Pageviews API (CC0), user traffic only, rename-adjusted, Jan 2023–Jul 2026)
Combine an 85% injury prevalence with tens of millions of new players and the conclusion writes itself: padel injury prevention is becoming a public-health topic. That is exactly why this page exists — and why our prevention hub and 8-week injury prevention program are built strictly from the evidence.

Methodology & How to Cite

Where these numbers come from and how to reuse them

Methodology: every statistic on this page is drawn from peer-reviewed studies (systematic reviews preferred), official registries, or named industry reports, and links directly to its source. Ranges are reported as published — where studies disagree, we show the range rather than picking a number. This page is re-verified and updated as new studies publish; figures were last verified July 2026. It is part of the PadelRevive evidence database, which requires at least two independent sources (or one authoritative systematic review/guideline) before any claim is published.

How to cite: you are welcome to reuse any statistic on this page with attribution — cite it as “PadelRevive — Padel Injury Statistics 2026 (padelrevive.com/injuries/padel-injury-statistics/)”, and please also credit the primary study linked next to the number. Journalists and researchers: for questions or the underlying source list, contact info@padelrevive.com.

Keep Reading

Padel Elbow: Causes, Treatment & RecoveryRecover faster between matches8-Week Injury Prevention ProgramEvidence-rated padel shoesPadel warm-up routinePadel eye protection glasses

Why Padel Triggers It

Explosive movement, repetitive load, and skipped preparation. Padel asks a lot of the body in short bursts.

Warning Signs

Pain that lingers after play, weakness, or symptoms that return each session. Don’t play through these.

The Fix

Calm the irritated tissue, then rebuild strength and mobility so it can handle the load again.

Injury Statistics 2026 in padel rarely comes out of nowhere — it’s a pattern. The same overload, the same skipped preparation, repeated until the tissue gives. Spot the pattern and it becomes preventable.

See How to Prevent This
Pair recovery with prevention to keep injury statistics 2026 from coming back.
Part of the PadelRevive padel injury + recovery system. Built by players, for players.

Padel Injury Statistics: Frequently Asked Questions

The quick, sourced answers

How common are padel injuries?

Very common: studies report that 40–95% of padel players have suffered an injury, with an incidence of roughly 3 injuries per 1,000 hours of training and 8 per 1,000 match hours (Dahmen et al. 2023). A 2025 German study measured 4.03 injuries per 1,000 hours.

What is the most common padel injury?

The elbow — lateral epicondylalgia or “padel elbow” — accounting for 30–74% of all padel injuries across studies. Tendon injuries overall make up 44–49% of injuries.

Is padel more dangerous than tennis?

Padel shows a higher injury prevalence: 85.4% of padel players report injuries versus 39–46% of tennis players and 58% of squash players in a 2025 comparative systematic review. The pattern differs too — padel concentrates injuries in the elbow.

How dangerous are padel eye injuries?

More than most players realise: padel became the number-one cause of sports-related eye injuries in Swedish registry data by 2021, smashes reach 130 km/h, and 10.3% of players in an Italian survey reported ocular trauma. Certified polycarbonate eyewear reduces severe eye injury risk by about 90%.

Can padel injuries be prevented?

Largely, yes. Neuromuscular warm-up programmes reduce overall sports injuries by roughly 30% in meta-analyses (FIFA 11+ model), and progressive strength work protects the tendons that padel loads hardest. No padel-specific programme has been validated yet — researchers explicitly call for one.

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