Eye injuries and eyewear rules: what the studies record and who requires what.

What this page does and does not say

This page reports what each standard covers and what each body requires. It does not say any eyewear prevents eye injury, and it does not say any product meets a standard or is approved. Each standard and each body's list decides that for itself, and World Squash places responsibility for the product on the player: its 2025 rules say the player is responsible for the quality of the eyewear worn.

Eye injuries in the research, sport by sport

Squash

• Southampton, 1978 to 1979. Barrell and colleagues (BMJ, 1981) reviewed 118 patients treated at Southampton Eye Hospital for eye injuries from squash, badminton, tennis, table tennis, cricket or football. In squash the ball was the main cause. Severe injuries needing inpatient care were rare but more frequent in squash than in the other sports. The authors concluded that an eye injury is very unlikely for a squash player but can have serious short- and long-term consequences.
• Glasgow, published 1987. MacEwen (British Journal of Ophthalmology, 1987) reviewed 246 sports eye injuries over 18 months at two Glasgow hospitals: squash caused 19 (7.7%) and badminton 16 (6.5%), while football caused the most (110).
• Swiss clubs, 2000. Leuba, Secretan and Wolfensberger surveyed 82 Swiss squash clubs, about a third of which replied. One club sold protective goggles, two displayed eye-protection posters, and most rated the risk as low; the authors concluded that clubs underestimated it.

No recent squash eye-injury rate was found.

Badminton

• 85 cases, 2020. Yu and colleagues (British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2020) described 85 patients aged 15 to 65: 60 struck by a shuttle and 25 by a racket. 73 injuries happened in doubles, and 52 were caused by the injured player's own partner. Diagnoses included hyphaema (58), secondary glaucoma (36), lens subluxation (23) and retinal detachment (2); 5 injuries were penetrating. The authors recommended protective eyewear and safety education.
• Vancouver, 2013. Cadenhead and colleagues (BCMJ, 2018) found 58 sport-related cases among 1,301 charts at the Vancouver General Hospital Eye Care Centre. Badminton was second after soccer, with 9 patients, all with traumatic hyphema. The authors suggested considering badminton eyewear rules like squash's and promoting eyewear for young players.

Pickleball

• US emergency visits, 2005 to 2024. Lacher, Koc and Tsui (JAMA Ophthalmology, October 2025), as reported by Review of Optometry, estimated 3,112 eye injuries nationally from 73 NEISS cases, 1,262 of them in 2024, with about 70% in people aged 50 or older. Injuries ranged from cuts around the eye and corneal abrasions to retinal detachment, globe trauma, orbital fractures and hyphema. The authors called for standardised eye-protection guidelines for pickleball. NEISS counts emergency visits with no figures for how many people play, so this is a trend, not a risk per player.
• Players aged 60 and over, 2010 to 2019. In Weiss and colleagues' NEISS study, eye injuries were 0.5% of senior pickleball injuries.

Tennis and padel

• Tennis. In the same Weiss study, eye injuries were 1.4% of senior tennis injuries.
• Padel. The 2023 padel review's only eye finding was one study reporting eye contusion in about 1.7% of injuries. No peer-reviewed padel eye-injury study was found that the research could use.

The standards, and the F803 to F3164 history

Several standards cover racket-sport eye protectors. Which one applies has changed over time, and the sources do not all agree.

• ASTM F3164 (US). First published as F3164-19. The Vision Council announced in 2019 that it replaced the racket-sport requirements previously inside ASTM F803, the third sport-specific standard split from F803 after women's lacrosse (F3077-17) and field hockey (F2713-18). The current edition, F3164-24, is titled for racquetball, squash, tennis and pickleball; ASTM announced in December 2024 that the revision added tests for pickleball protectors (that announcement was seen only in a search excerpt). ASTM's listing says F3164-24 covers impact and penetration by rackets, paddles and balls to the eye and its surrounding structures only, not the rest of the head.
• ASTM F803 (US). The general "selected sports" standard. Its 2019 edition (1 October 2019) lists basketball, baseball and soccer in its scope.
• ISO 18527-2:2021. The international standard for eye protectors for squash, racquetball and squash 57, published 2 March 2021 according to a standards retailer's listing (the ISO page itself could not be opened). That listing says it covers prescription-lens models but does not apply to protectors worn over ordinary spectacles, lensless protectors or gradient-tinted lenses. England Squash tells buyers to look for BS EN 18527-2:2021.
• National standards named by squash bodies. CSA P400 (Canada), BS 7930-1 (Britain), AS/NZS 4066 (Australia and New Zealand), as listed in the policies below. Their current editions were not confirmed from the standards bodies.

The sources disagree on F803. One side: ASTM moved racket sports to F3164 in 2019, and The Vision Council told eyecare professionals that year that F803 protectors are no longer appropriate for racket sports, and that the F803 name had been used for misleading, overbroad compliance claims. The other side: several squash policies still name F803 (Squash Ontario, March 2017; Squash Canada, November 2018; Scottish Squash, January 2023; and World Squash's 2014 list), and the Finnish Standards Association's listing of F803-25, published 1 September 2025, gives an abstract that names racket sports again. The F803-25 text itself was not read, so whether it covers racket sports in the way F3164 does is unconfirmed. More on each standard is on eye protection standards.

The pickleball standard in the press. Review of Optometry reported that the American Academy of Ophthalmology recommended ASTM F3134 in 2024; The Ophthalmologist reported the recommendation as F3164. The academy's EyeNet clinical update of March 2024 quotes an ophthalmologist recommending F3164 eyewear as suitable for pickleball, and states that pickleball had no eye-protection requirement.

Who requires eyewear, for whom

Squash: how far the junior rule reaches

The sources disagree. World Squash's 2014 guidance ties compulsory junior eyewear to its own championships, and its 2025 rules make eyewear mandatory at the junior events it sanctions. A news report of 29 September 2026 (Khel Now), citing World Squash rules, describes it as a rule for juniors under 19 at all times in play, including senior events, and says World Squash names ISO 18527-2:2021, with BS EN 18527-2:2021 recognised in the UK and F3164-19 in the US. That report is not the rule text, and the current World Squash rule text beyond Appendix 4 was not found. England Squash's own pages also differ: a search excerpt of its equipment page says juniors must wear approved protection at all its competitions and activities, while its July 2025 support article makes it compulsory in competition and strongly recommended in training. Squash Canada quotes PSA Rule Book rule 6.4.1, under which juniors at PSA events follow the sanctioning national federation's rules, so juniors must wear eye guards at PSA events in Canada. Squash Ontario warns that many protectors on sale do not meet the standards and are in effect clear sunglasses.

Pickleball

Press reports (The Ophthalmologist, November 2025; the Boston Globe, 16 October 2025) say USA Pickleball declined a 2024 proposal to require eyewear in its sanctioned tournaments, citing difficulty of enforcement. No USA Pickleball document on that decision was found, so the decision and its reason are unconfirmed. USA Pickleball did not respond when Connecticut Public asked about the call for eye-protection guidelines (19 October 2025). In Canada, CTV News reported on 15 January 2026 that Pickleball B.C.'s president said the body strongly recommends eye protection for recreational players; no Pickleball B.C. document was read.

Badminton

No BWF eyewear rule was found. A 2022 case report and a 2020 CMAJ article (seen only as a search excerpt) say the Ontario Badminton Association required ASTM F803 eyewear for junior doubles players in competitive play (from 2005, per CMAJ) and that British Columbia required it for players under 19. No current Badminton Ontario or Badminton BC policy was found, so both are unconfirmed. A 2006 district-level statement disagrees on the Ontario scope: it says the rule applied only at sanctioned events to juniors in doubles and mixed doubles, mentions a later, broader policy, and says that district did not adopt it.