Djokovic warns club tennis is ‘endangered’ by rise of padel

Novak Djokovic has warned that club tennis is “endangered” by a rise in the popularity of padel.

Padel, a hybrid between squash and tennis, is one of the fastest-growing sports, with an estimated 30 million players worldwide, including Lionel Messi, David Beckham and Serena Williams.

Djokovic, 37, said he feared grassroots tennis was at risk of being displaced by padel and pickleball, its American variant which uses thinner rackets and can be played in both singles and doubles.

The seven-time Wimbledon champion, speaking after beating Alexei Popyrin of Australia on Saturday, said tennis had done a “very poor job” in making the sport affordable and accessible for aspiring competitors.

He said: “Tennis is the king or queen of all the racket sports, that’s true. But on a club level, tennis is endangered.

“If we don’t do something about it, as I said, globally or collectively, padel, pickleball in [the] States, they’re going to convert all the tennis clubs into padel and pickleball because it’s just more economical.

“You have one tennis court. You can build three padel courts on one tennis court. You do the simple math. It’s just much more financially viable for an owner of a club to have those courts.”

Elitism

Last year British tennis player Dan Evans criticised British tennis for its elitism, saying he was a rare example of a working class tennis pro.

He said: “I voice my opinions because I want working-class kids to get the support they deserve. I’m doing it for working-class people like I was.”

A tennis court measures 78ft (23.77m) in length and 36ft (10.97m) in width (for doubles). By contrast, a padel court is 66ft (20 metres) long and 33 ft (10 metres) wide.

Tennis still remains the dominant sport with 87 million players globally as of 2017.

However, a report from the International Padel Federation has found the number of padel players worldwide has more than doubled in the space of a decade, from around 12 million in 2014 to 30 million in 2024.

In the UK there are now an estimated 200,000 amateur players and 470 courts at 173 clubs.

Annabel Croft, the former British No 1, has championed padel and claimed it is an easier sport to pick up than tennis.

She told The Telegraph: “It’s a very inclusive sport, there’s no barriers to anybody trying to pick up a bat and trying to have a go. I would encourage anyone to give it a go.”