Court and facility safety: what the rule books and specifications require.

Court rules touch on safety where players can meet walls, glass, fences, posts and doors: the FIP requires padel walls that allow bodily contact, and World Squash defines the player impact a glass wall must withstand. The research found published safety requirements in three places: the FIP Rules of Padel, World Squash's court specifications and the ITF's court guidance for tennis. Each applies to its own sport and is set out separately below. Building or certifying a court is a job for specialists working from the current documents, which this page only summarises.

Padel: FIP Rules of Padel (from 1 January 2026)

The FIP's rule book, in the review applying from 1 January 2026, includes several requirements that bear on safety.

Walls, glass and fencing

• Glass. Glass courts must meet the standards for tempered or plate glass set out in the FIP's Annex on Courts Homologation. That annex was not found, so its contents are not given here.
• Wall surfaces. Walls must have a hard, completely smooth, uniform surface that allows bodily contact.
• Metal fencing. Where the mesh is soldered, every solder point must be protected on both sides against cuts or scratches, with no sharp or pointed edges at the joins.

Space around and above the court

• Out-of-court play. Where play outside the court is allowed, the rules require two access points on each side and an obstacle-free area outside the court at least 3 m wide (4 m recommended), 4 m long and 3 m high on each side.
• Padding. The access openings and the net posts must be padded with cushioning material at least 2 cm thick, firmly fixed.
• Clear height. A minimum free height of 6 m over the whole court with nothing in the way, such as spotlights; 8 m is suggested for new facilities.
• Light poles. They must stand outside the court, and out-of-court play is not allowed if light poles fall inside the safety area.

Doors, net and posts

• Where courts have doors, the handles must be on the outside and must not stick out into the court.
• The net-tensioning mechanism must not be able to loosen unexpectedly or pose a risk to players, and net posts must have rounded edges.

The wrist cord

The FIP rules make a non-elastic wrist cord, at most 35 cm long, fixed to the racket handle and worn around the wrist, obligatory; the rule book describes it as protection against accidents. A pair loses the point if a player breaks the cord or drops the racket. The racket rules themselves are on padel rackets and balls.

Glass type: the sources differ

A Belgian padel federation document, seen only as a search excerpt, names the EU tempered-glass standard EN 12150-1 for glass courts and tells countries outside the EU to consult their own standards; that is unconfirmed. Court-glass sellers and padel trade sites, which are commercial sources, disagree among themselves about glass: some describe 10 mm or 12 mm tempered glass as usual and 6+6 mm laminated glass as an alternative that some consider safer, and one says an Italian standard, UNI 7697/2021, requires laminated glass where falling tempered fragments could be dangerous. None of these figures is in the FIP rule text read, which leaves glass to its homologation annex.

Squash: World Squash court specifications (January 2017)

World Squash's "Specifications for Squash Courts", in pages dated January 2017, include these safety requirements:

• Transparent walls. They must be built of safety materials tested to the appropriate national standard at a defined player-impact energy, and must meet requirements for safe breakage. Where a country has no national standard, BS EN 12600:2000 and ANSI Z97.1-1984 are among those accepted.
• Player impact. The specification defines the impact a wall must withstand: a body absorbing 47% of the impact energy, with the impact centred about 1.47 m above the floor.
• Junctions. No protrusions of any kind are allowed where walls meet each other or the floor.
• The door. It must open into the court and sit in the middle third of the back wall (the middle is recommended), with a plain inside surface flush with the wall, a flush handle, a restraint that stops it swinging through 180 degrees into the wall, and a latch that keeps it shut if a player hits it from inside.
• Camera panels. Panels in playing walls must be flush, withstand impact from ball, rackets and players, and be made of a material, such as safety glass, not liable to cause serious injury to players or spectators if broken.
• Finger traps. The contents list a section on finger traps with transparent doors (clause 7.04); its text was not extracted in the research.

World Squash's 2025 rule book says its court specifications are set by its Courts and Equipment Commission and published on its website, separately from the rules.

Tennis: ITF court guidance

An ITF document on court sizes (file dated December 2022) recommends, as a guide for international competitions, at least 21 feet (6.40 m) between each baseline and the backstop and 12 feet (3.66 m) between each sideline and the sidestop. It says indoor or covered show courts must have a minimum height of 10 m unless the ITF approves otherwise. A search excerpt says the Rules of Tennis carry the backstop and sidestop guidance in an appendix whose letter changes between editions (Appendix X in 2026); that is unconfirmed. These are competition figures for international events, not requirements for every court.

Pickleball and badminton: not found

• Pickleball. The 2026 USA Pickleball Official Rulebook, Rule 3.A.3, sets a minimum playing surface of 30 by 60 ft (9.14 by 18.29 m) and recommends 34 by 64 ft for new construction and tournament play and 50 by 80 ft for a stadium court; the court itself is 20 by 44 ft. No USA Pickleball guidance that names run-off space, and none on fencing, was found; retailer and builder run-off figures were seen, and they disagree, so none is given. Pickleball Canada's 2026 concussion policy lists contact with fixed objects such as net posts, bleachers and fencing among the ways concussions happen in pickleball. Courts shared with tennis are covered on shared courts and facilities.
• Badminton. No BWF specification for halls or clearances was found; the BWF's website could not be opened for the research.

Shoes and surfaces

Several rule books also govern footwear, mainly to protect the court surface. Those rules, and the court surface classifications for tennis, are on court shoes and court surfaces and pace.