Complete Guide to Building a Padel Court in Pakistan

A padel court looks simple from the outside: a rectangle of turf inside a glass box. In practice it is a small engineering project with a sequence that does not tolerate being reordered. This guide walks the sequence.

Stage 1 — Site assessment

Before anything else, the site has to be measured and understood: levels across the plot, ground conditions below it, where water goes when it rains hard, whether a truck and a crane can reach the working area, and what power is available.

Stage 2 — Layout and court count

A padel court is 20 m × 10 m. Allow roughly 22 m × 12 m per court once access around the structure is included. From there, layout decides everything about how the facility works: orientation relative to low sun, spacing between courts, walkways, viewing positions and where a second phase of courts could go.

• Orient courts so low morning and evening sun is not straight down the length of play where you can avoid it
• Leave a genuine walkway between adjacent courts — players and spectators both need it
• Decide the phase-two position now, even if you never build it
• Position the entrance so players do not cross a live court to reach theirs

Stage 3 — Groundworks and base

This is the part nobody photographs and everything depends on. Excavation, compacted sub-base, drainage falls and then either a reinforced concrete slab or a porous concrete base. Get the falls wrong and water sits on the turf. Get the compaction wrong and the slab cracks and takes the court with it.

In a monsoon climate, drainage should be sized for peak rainfall intensity rather than annual averages. Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad all receive their rain in concentrated bursts.

Stage 4 — Steel structure

The galvanised steel frame carries the glass and the net posts and resists wind loading. Two things are worth writing into the specification rather than assuming: the galvanising standard, and the wind load the frame has been engineered for. In coastal Karachi, corrosion protection deserves particular attention.

Stage 5 — Glass

Tempered glass panels, normally 10 mm or 12 mm, fixed with certified brackets. Glass is the component most likely to be damaged in transit and installation, so a breakage allowance and a confirmed replacement lead time belong in the plan from the start.

Stage 6 — Surface

Synthetic turf is rolled, seamed and then filled with silica sand. The infill is not a detail: it sets the bounce, the slide underfoot and how the fibres wear. Under-filled turf plays fast and flattens early; over-filled turf feels dead.

Stage 7 — Lighting and fit-out

LED fixtures mounted on poles or on the structure, laid out for uniformity rather than raw brightness, plus distribution, controls and metering. Then nets, benches, signage, storage and access control.

What goes wrong most often

1. Drainage designed for average rainfall instead of peak intensity
2. A base reused from an existing slab that was never assessed properly
3. Lighting specified on price per fixture rather than uniformity on court
4. Corrosion protection under-specified on a coastal or humid site
5. No breakage allowance for glass, so a single panel stops the programme
6. Layout fixed before anyone asked where phase two would go