The courts are packed all summer. Great for business, less great for your body. Summer play comes with real heat risk, and most people ignore it until they’re on the bench, dizzy and confused about how it went sideways so fast. You don’t need to be running a marathon for the heat to catch up with you. A two-hour doubles match at 90 degrees will do it just as well.
Heat Sickness Is More Common Than You Think
Tennis, pickleball, and padel players are exposed in a specific way: sustained effort, direct sun, hard surfaces that reflect and radiate heat right back at you. Asphalt and acrylic courts can run 40 to 60 degrees hotter than the air around them.
The CDC logs over 65,000 ER visits a year for heat-related illness, and athletes show up in that number more than most. Symptoms escalate fast. Pushing through the early ones instead of stopping is how people end up in the ER instead of just annoyed.
Hydration: Skip the Thirst Test
“Drink when you’re thirsty” doesn’t cut it on court. Thirst shows up after you’re already dehydrated.
Better rule: 16 to 20 ounces every 20 to 30 minutes during play. Pre-hydrate before you start, keep drinking after you stop. Playing past 90 minutes or sweating a lot? Water alone won’t cover it. You’ll need electrolytes too.
A few myths worth retiring: coffee doesn’t dehydrate you enough to matter mid-session. Sports drinks don’t replace water, they supplement it. And cold water doesn’t cause cramps, that’s not a real thing. Drink it cold. It helps cool you down faster.
Timing Beats Everything Else
The single best adjustment: stop playing at noon in July. Peak heat runs roughly 10am to 4pm, and that’s also when UV and court surface temps max out.
Dawn and dusk sessions aren’t just safer, they’re better: cooler air, thinner crowds, decent light. A 7am match and a noon match in August are basically two different sports.
If midday is your only option, take breaks every 20 to 30 minutes. Find shade. Sit down. Let your body catch up before you go back out.
What to Wear
Light colors reflect heat, dark colors absorb it. Wear white or pastels. Moisture-wicking fabric lets sweat actually evaporate and cool you off. Cotton just holds onto both the sweat and the heat.
A brimmed hat isn’t optional in direct sun. Sunscreen goes on 20 to 30 minutes before you step outside, and again if you’re out past two hours. If you play outside often, UV-protective clothing is worth the investment.
Know the Warning Signs
Early heat exhaustion: heavy sweating, pale or cool skin, weakness, dizziness, nausea, headache, a fast or weak pulse. If you notice any of this, stop. Get to shade, drink water, and rest.
Heat stroke is different, and it’s an emergency: hot, red, dry or damp skin, a rapid strong pulse, confusion, possible loss of consciousness. That’s a 911 call, full stop. Cool the person down with whatever’s on hand while you wait for help.
Other red flags: dark urine, cramps that don’t ease up with water and rest, and, this one surprises people, no sweat despite the heat. If you’re not sure whether to keep playing, don’t. You can always reschedule a match. You can’t reschedule a heat stroke.
Recovery Matters As Much As the Game
You lose more than water out there: sodium, potassium, magnesium all go with the sweat. That’s why a liter of water post-match can still leave you feeling off. You need the minerals back too.
Gatorade or Pedialyte work. So do electrolyte tablets mixed into water. Coconut water’s a decent natural option. A salty snack, pretzels, crackers, a banana, can help too. But skip the alcohol right after; it just speeds dehydration back up.
CourtsApp Hack: Book Dawn or Dusk
The simplest fix for all of this is not being on the court during the worst hours. CourtsApp lets you filter by time of day, so you can grab an early morning or evening slot without digging for it. More facilities are adding off-peak hours because the demand for them keeps climbing.
Beat the heat. Find dawn and dusk courts on CourtsApp. Play smart, stay safe, keep playing.
