Padel

Padel is played two against two on an enclosed court 20 metres by 10, about a third of the area of a tennis court, surrounded by glass and mesh walls. Scoring is identical to tennis. The racket is a solid, stringless, perforated bat, and the ball is a slightly lower-pressure tennis ball.

The wall is what makes it a different sport. After the ball bounces on your side of the court it may come off the back or side wall and still be returned — so a shot that would be a clean winner in tennis is often simply the start of the next phase. The result is far longer rallies, far more of the point spent thinking about position, and a game where power is a liability as often as an asset.

The other structural difference is that padel is always doubles. There is no singles game on a standard court, so it is inherently social, and the etiquette around finding a fourth is a large part of how clubs work.

1. 1

   Step 1: Book a beginner session, not a court

   Almost every padel venue runs introductory sessions with rackets provided and a coach who will pair you up. Booking a bare court with three friends who have also never played produces an hour of picking balls up.

   You will know it worked when: You rally in the first ten minutes and understand the wall.

2. 2

   Step 2: Borrow a racket for the first three sessions

   Rackets differ in shape and weight distribution in ways that matter, and you cannot judge which suits you until you have hit a few hundred balls.

   You will know it worked when: You buy the right racket rather than the first one.

3. 3

   Step 3: Learn to let the ball come off the wall

   This is the single technical hurdle. Every instinct from tennis says to intercept the ball early; padel says to let it pass, wait for the rebound, and hit it as it comes back towards the net. It feels wrong for about two sessions and then becomes the game.

   You will know it worked when: You stop losing points you could have retrieved.

4. 4

   Step 4: Learn the lob

   The most important shot in padel, and the one beginners neglect. A good lob pushes the opposing pair off the net and reverses the point.

   You will know it worked when: You can win a point without hitting hard.

5. 5

   Step 5: Join a club WhatsApp group or ladder

   Padel is doubles-only, so your ability to play depends entirely on knowing three other people at your level. Every club has an arrangement for this.

   You will know it worked when: You get regular games.

• The serve is underarm and diagonal — You bounce the ball behind the service line and strike it underarm into the diagonal service box. The federation rule is more precise than the usual "below the waist": contact must be at or below the iliac crest — the top of the hip bone — which sits lower than most people assume. Two attempts, as in tennis. There is no serve-and-volley advantage of the kind a tennis serve creates, which is why beginners can rally immediately.
• The walls are in play — on your own side — The ball must bounce on the floor first. After that it may hit your own walls and be returned. What you may not do is hit the ball directly onto your own wall to get it over the net.
• The ball may go out through the gaps — On courts with side openings the ball can leave the court and be played back in from outside, which produces the sport’s most spectacular points. This is legal at competition level and glorious to watch.
• A ball hitting the opponent’s wall directly from your shot is a fault — It must bounce on their floor first. This is the rule beginners break most often.
• Scoring is tennis scoring — 15, 30, 40, game; six games with a two-game margin for a set; best of three sets. Deciding-point (golden point) scoring at deuce is common in club and professional play.

Dimensions and permitted court configurations are set by the international federation and adopted domestically; confirm current specifications against the rulebook before relying on them for anything that matters.

• Racket shape — Round rackets have the sweet spot in the centre and the most forgiveness — the correct beginner choice. Teardrop is the middle ground. Diamond rackets move the sweet spot towards the tip for power and are for players who consistently hit the middle.
• Weight and balance — Typically 350–390g. Lighter and lower-balanced is easier to manoeuvre at the net; heavier and head-heavy hits harder and tires the arm. Beginners should err light.
• Core — Soft EVA foam is forgiving and comfortable; harder cores transfer more power and more vibration. Cold weather stiffens foam noticeably.
• The wrist strap is compulsory — A padel racket released at speed inside an enclosed court is genuinely dangerous. Courts and competitions require the strap for this reason.
• Balls — Slightly lower pressure than tennis balls. They go dead faster than they look; a tube lasts a few sessions of serious play.
• Shoes — Clay-court tennis shoes or padel-specific shoes with a herringbone sole. They grip and release on sand rather than sticking, which protects knees and ankles.

Everything that makes padel a different sport from tennis is in the walls, and almost every beginner spends their first month fighting them. The instinct a tennis player brings — move towards the ball, take it early — is precisely wrong, and unlearning it is the fastest improvement available to anybody.

This is written down rather than demonstrated because what a beginner needs is not a swing to copy. It is the rule, and the rule is geometry: the ball rebounds off the back wall and comes *towards you*, so the shot is played after the bounce, from behind where you instinctively stood, moving away from the wall rather than into it.

What actually happens, in order, on a deep ball:

1. 1

   Step 1: The ball bounces on the floor first

   It must. A ball reaching the wall without bouncing is out. Everything after this assumes the floor bounce has already happened.

   You will know it worked when: You are watching the bounce, not the wall.

2. 2

   Step 2: It rebounds off the glass towards you

   This is the moment the tennis instinct fires and must be ignored. Do not close on the ball; let it come.

   You will know it worked when: You have not run into your own returning ball.

3. 3

   Step 3: You move back and across, not forward

   Take a step towards the wall as the ball passes you, turn, and let it come off. The ball ends up in front of you, which is where you can hit it.

   You will know it worked when: You are behind the ball rather than jammed by it.

4. 4

   Step 4: You hit it at a comfortable height on the way through

   The rebound gives you time that a tennis court would not. Most beginners hit far too early and far too hard here.

   You will know it worked when: A controlled shot instead of a defensive scoop.

What beginners get wrong, in order of how often:

• Moving towards the ball — The tennis reflex. It jams you against your own returning ball and there is no shot from there.
• Hitting before the wall — Legal, and usually a wasted opportunity — the rebound would have given you a better position and more time.
• Standing too close to the glass — A metre and a half off the back wall is roughly right. Beginners stand with their back to it and have nowhere to go.
• Treating every rebound the same — The table above is the point: how the ball arrives at the wall determines everything about how it leaves.
• Watching the wall instead of the ball — Watch the ball onto the glass and off it. The wall does not move.

Padel has no belts and no formal ladder, and the levelling systems clubs use are local and inconsistent. What it does have is a fairly reliable order in which things become the limiting factor, and knowing that order is most of what stops a plateau feeling like a wall.

1. 1

   Step 1: Stop losing points to the wall

   The first ceiling is entirely the glass. Until a deep ball off the back wall is a shot you look forward to rather than one you brace for, nothing else you learn will hold up in a game.

   You will know it worked when: You play the rebound on purpose instead of reacting to it.

2. 2

   Step 2: Get to the net, and stay there

   The second ceiling is position. The pair at the net wins the large majority of points at every level, so the skill that pays is the one that gets you there and the one that keeps you there when they lob.

   You will know it worked when: You win points from position rather than from shots.

3. 3

   Step 3: Play with the same partner for a season

   Padel is a pairs game and most of the improvement after the first few months is coordination rather than individual skill. Rotating partners every week keeps you a beginner for longer than anything else on this list.

   You will know it worked when: You move as a pair without talking about it.

4. 4

   Step 4: Enter a club americano or a round robin

   The low-commitment competitive format most clubs run: rotating partners, short sets, one evening. It is the cheapest way to find out what your game does under mild pressure, and nobody there is a professional.

   You will know it worked when: You have played points that mattered slightly.

5. 5

   Step 5: Take a small number of lessons, late rather than early

   Coaching is most valuable once you have a game to correct. A player who has been round the first two ceilings gets more from four lessons than a beginner gets from twenty, because the coach can work on the thing that is actually costing points.

   You will know it worked when: You are working on a named fault rather than on everything.

6. 6

   Step 6: Play a graded league or a local tournament

   The point at which the sport stops being exercise and starts being a competition. Grading is by club or by regional system and is worth asking about before entering, because the difference between two adjacent categories is larger than it looks.

   You will know it worked when: You have a result, and something to improve for.

• Americanos and mexicanos are how you get a game — The formats that define the social side. An americano rotates partners every few games so everybody plays with and against everybody, and points are individual; a mexicano re-pairs by standing after each round. Both exist because a doubles sport needs a way for four strangers to have a good afternoon, and both are the standard route in for somebody who knows nobody.
• Level, honestly stated, is the courtesy — Clubs and apps sort by a stated level, and over-claiming is the one antisocial act in the sport — it produces a match nobody enjoys, including you. Under-claiming is regarded as charming and gets corrected within a game.
• Court time is booked, paid and shared, and you come off on the hour — Courts are scarce and expensive, and the next four are standing behind the glass. Finishing the point and leaving promptly is the most visible etiquette at any club.
• Call your own lines, and give the point away when unsure — Almost all padel is unofficiated. The convention is that the receiving pair calls their own side, that a ball you are not certain about is in, and that nobody argues. The walls make some calls genuinely ambiguous and the sport has decided to solve that with generosity rather than with argument.
• Warn before you smash out of the court — The por tres — hitting the ball out of the enclosure and running round to play it — is a real shot and a real hazard to whoever is outside. Look first.
• It is a very new sport in Britain, and everybody there is new too — The most reassuring fact about walking into a padel club. Facility numbers have grown from almost nothing within a few years, which means the person on the next court has probably been playing for eight months. There is very little accumulated seniority to be intimidated by.

The tone of the sport is noticeably more sociable than tennis, and the reasons are structural rather than cultural: the court is small enough to talk across, the rallies are long enough to be fun at any standard, the ball comes off the glass in ways that make good players lose points to bad ones, and it is played four at a time. A great deal of padel is arranged in a group chat and ends in a bar.