Mehvish Safdar is a Pakistani-American born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her parents having immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan to work as medical doctors. She grew up playing competitive tennis following the lead of her two older sisters. As for her tennis career, Mehvish was a former 3x Ohio state champion, top 10 U.S. nationally ranked junior, 5-star college recruit, and a nationally ranked DI college tennis player on a full athletic scholarship on a nationally ranked DI big ten conference team at the University of Minnesota.

Mehvish started playing pickleball in 2022, however, it wasn’t until the summer of 2024 that she fully committed to training and competing at the highest level. She achieved a top 50 singles and top 100 doubles PPA Tour world ranking in 2024 and signed with the PPA Tour in 2025. Mehvish was selected as the 13th overall MLP premier-level draft pick for the 2025 MLP season. Mehvish began her professional pickleball career primarily playing women’s doubles with her sister, Komal Safdar, a medical doctor as well as former DI tennis player.  

Mehvish was also a dominant force in collegiate pickleball representing Indiana University as a Ph.D student, winning two individual national titles, earning a #1 U.S. national collegiate ranking, and historically becoming the first collegiate pickleball player ever to be drafted to an MLP premier-level team.

Off the court, Mehvish is a Ph.D. student studying sport psychology, possessing a passion for helping athletes sharpen their mental game to optimize performance. Ba