Saudi Arabia is the Middle Eastern country with the highest number of padel players. Over the next five years (by 2030) Saudi Arabia hopes to register 5,000 players in local competitions.
Three-quarters of Asia’s padel clubs are concentrated in the Middle East, and the regional country with the most is Saudi Arabia. This according to the International Padel Federation (FIP), which puts the figures at follows:
- Asia: about 1,200 clubs and related accommodations and 4,100 courts
- Saudi Arabia: about 431 clubs and accommodations and 1,097 courts
To put this in perspective, let’s compare this against the world’s most fanatical country for padel. In 2023, according to Playtomic’s year-in-review, Spain had 16,126 courts – not far from quadruple Saudi Arabia’s total. Spain’s population is about 49 million, Saudi Arabia’s about 33 million.
The number of amateur players in Saudi Arabia is about 400,000, the FIP continues. The country’s most padel-loving province is Riyadh, followed by the Eastern Province and Mecca. It established the Saudi Padel Committee federation in August 2021, the Saudi Padel League in September 2024.
Over the next five years (by 2030) Saudi Arabia hopes to register 5,000 players in local competitions, have three players rank in the world’s top 100 (Sara Mohammed Salhab is no. 249), install another thousand courts and, as the FIP writes, “increase community participation” so that padel “becomes one of the top five most popular sports.”
