What is padel?

Padel in one minute

Padel is played almost always as doubles, two against two, on a court roughly a third the size of a tennis court and completely enclosed by glass and metal mesh. You use a solid, stringless racket perforated with holes, and a ball that looks like a tennis ball but is very slightly softer.

The scoring is borrowed straight from tennis — 15, 30, 40, game — but two things make padel its own sport. The serve is underarm, hit below waist height after bouncing the ball on the ground, which removes the biggest barrier most beginners face in tennis. And the ball stays alive off the walls: once it has bounced on the floor on your side, you can let it come off the glass behind you and play it back.

The result is a game with long rallies, constant movement and a lot of tactics, but a very short learning curve. Most people can play a genuine, enjoyable point within minutes of picking up a racket, which is exactly why the sport has spread so quickly.

• Players Four, in two pairs. Singles exists but is rare and uses a narrower court.
• Court 20 m long by 10 m wide, enclosed by glass and mesh, divided by a net.
• Racket Solid, stringless and perforated, with a mandatory wrist strap.
• Serve Underarm, below the waist, after one bounce, diagonally into the opposite box.
• Scoring Tennis scoring: games, sets and usually the best of three sets.
• Walls In play. The rebound is part of the rally, not the end of it.

Where padel came from

Padel was invented in 1969 in Acapulco, Mexico, by Enrique Corcuera. He had a walled space beside his house that was too small for a tennis court, so he added walls, a net and a set of adapted rules, and called the result padel.

The sport travelled through friendships. Alfonso de Hohenlohe, a Spanish friend of Corcuera, played on that first court and built two of his own at the Marbella Club in Spain in the mid-1970s. From Marbella it reached Argentina, where it grew into a mass-participation sport with thousands of courts and a deep competitive culture that still produces many of the world’s best players.

The International Padel Federation was founded in 1991, and the first world championship followed in 1992. For decades padel was largely a Spanish, Argentinian and Latin American story. That changed in the 2010s: professional tours brought the sport to television and social media, clubs opened across Europe, the Middle East and North America, and padel became one of the fastest-growing racket sports in the world.

Padel is not the same sport as “paddle tennis”, “platform tennis” or “pickleball”, all of which have separate histories, courts and rules.

The court, the net and the walls

A padel court is 20 metres long and 10 metres wide, enclosed on all four sides. The back walls and the lower part of the side walls are glass, with metal mesh above and along the rest of the sides, so the enclosure reaches roughly four metres high. Entrances sit in the middle of the side walls.

The net runs across the middle, dividing the court into two 10 by 10 metre halves. It sits at 88 cm in the centre and rises slightly to 92 cm at the posts. On each side, a service line runs across the court 6.95 m from the net, and a centre line divides the area between the net and the service line into two service boxes.

The glass matters more than it first appears. It gives players a second chance at almost every ball, which is why padel rallies last so long, and it means good players read rebound angles the way a squash player does.

Dimensions here follow the International Padel Federation’s standard court. Older or non-standard club courts vary slightly.

How a match is played

1. The server stands behind the service line, bounces the ball on the ground, and strikes it below waist height into the service box diagonally opposite. Two attempts are allowed, as in tennis.
2. The receiver must let the serve bounce before returning it — you cannot volley a serve.
3. From then on, the ball must be struck before it bounces twice on your side, and it must go over the net and land inside the opponents’ court.
4. After the ball has bounced on the floor on your side, it may rebound off your own glass or mesh and you can still play it. Many of padel’s best defensive shots start there.
5. A ball that flies directly into the opponents’ wall without bouncing on their floor first is out, and the point is yours.
6. Points build into games, games into sets, and sets into a match — normally the best of three.

The single biggest tactical idea in padel is the net. The pair standing at the net is attacking; the pair pinned at the back is defending. Most points are decided by who wins that position and who is forced to give it up, which is why the lob is such a valuable shot.

Sides, positions and playing as a pair

Each pair splits the court between a right-hand side player and a left-hand side player. In a right-handed pair, the player on the left side takes most of the overheads down the middle, so that position often suits the more aggressive finisher, while the right side plays more of the setup balls.

A padel pair moves as one unit. If your partner steps forward, you step forward. If your partner is pulled wide to defend a ball off the side glass, you slide across to cover the middle. The gap between the two of you is the space your opponents are trying to create.

• At the net You are attacking. Volley low over the net, take the ball early and take away your opponents’ time.
• At the back You are defending. Use the walls, stay patient, and look for a lob that lets you move forward again.
• In transition The metre or two behind the service line is the most dangerous place to stand. Move through it, do not live in it.

Getting started

Padel is unusually cheap to try. Clubs rent rackets and sell balls, courts are booked by the hour and split between four people, and no special technique is required to have a good first game. Bring flat, non-marking court shoes with good lateral grip, and expect to move sideways far more than you expect.

• Book with three others Padel is doubles. If you do not have a four, most clubs run open sessions and Americano formats that mix players.
• Borrow before you buy Rent or borrow a racket for the first few sessions, then choose your own once you know how you play.
• Learn the lob early Beginners who lob well win far more points than beginners who hit hard.
• Let the wall work The most common beginner mistake is panicking as the ball goes past you. Turn, wait, and let it come off the glass.
• Track what you play Scoring your matches and writing down what went wrong makes the next session far more useful than simply playing more.

Frequently asked questions