Can You Play Singles Padel?

With only 24 hours to go until the annual padel tournament put on in our village, my usual padel partner called to say that he was no longer available. Instead of just forfeiting in the opening round I phoned up my friend Phil who had expressed interest in trying the sport. He asked why I don’t just play singles instead. That raised the question if it was even possible.

Can you play singles padel? Technically you can play padel as a singles game but it’s not ideal. The game of padel is built around four players pairing on a specially designed court that is 30% smaller than a tennis court. The court size combined with the speed of the game makes it difficult to cover enough ground to return balls.

It’s easy to think that playing padel singles should not be all that different from playing tennis singles or even a game of squash. But is it really that straight forward or is there more to playing padel singles than meets the eye? Let’s find out.

Overall Design Of Padel As A Sport

Padel gets played as a doubles match for a reason. The padel court is designed around a fast-paced game played off the glass walls requiring technical as well as tactical skills from players.

The pace of the game alone demands an awful lot from players which means that fitness and a good understanding between partners should be top priorities to make up a successful padel pair.  Therefore playing padel singles, although not impossible, is not only not a good idea but it is also counterproductive to the initial design and objective of the game.

Before talking about playing a padel singles match, let’s first get familiar with the differences between playing tennis singles and playing a squash match compared to playing a padel match.

Differences: Padel vs Tennis Singles

One of the things padel has in common with tennis is that both courts are divided by net in the middle of the court. The other feature that will feel familiar is that the padel court is divided into four quarters or two halves on each side of the net.

But that’s basically where the similarities end. If you’re coming from a tennis background you may have to consider the following factors before playing a padel singles match:

• The substantially smaller padel court (30% smaller in size than a tennis court) means an increased speed of play, leaving you with less time to react or get into position between shots. This may leave you “thrown off your feet”, so to speak, and may take some time to get used to.  
• The balls may look and feel identical but they’re not. You only notice the difference when you bounce the ball. Padel balls are less bouncy due to less pressure, which will impact on your normal (tennis) play. To find out more about the difference between a padel ball and a tennis ball, here is the article that I wrote in detail explaining those differences. For instance, due to the lesser bounce of the ball, you’ll be less likely to reach drop shots in time that are played by your opponent. All in all, you’ll have to get used to the fact that the ball will react and bounce differently during every shot you play.
• A padel court has no baseline as is the case in tennis. The entire court, including the enclosing glass walls, forms part of the playing area. This means that you need to adapt to the bounce angles of the ball as it comes off the walls
• Playing the ball off the walls means there is, in fact, more court to cover in less time, demanding more from you in terms of high impact intensity.

In Summary: Due to the smaller court and the resultant speed of the game compared to tennis, playing padel singles will have you run much more and faster to be able to cover enough ground to return balls, leaving you vulnerable to injury, in particular, calf muscle injury.

Differences: Padel vs Squash

If you’re coming from a squash background thinking that playing a padel singles game will be easy peasy, think again. The only thing squash has in common with the game of paddle is playing the ball off the walls, but even this similarity is limited in its scope. Let’s take a closer look at the differences between playing a squash match and playing a match of padel:  

• A paddle court is a massively 60% wider than two squash courts placed end to end. This leaves you with a rather intimating size court to cover in returning the ball.
• A squash ball is much smaller and softer than a padel ball and therefore travels through the air much slower, ipso facto slowing down the speed of the game and in doing so, giving you more time to return the shot.
• You may find the net in the middle of the padel court difficult to negotiate on every shot. Instead, in squash, you only have the mid-wall service line to clear at the start of each point.  The “tin” at the bottom of the squash court wall is so low that it is hardly ever a factor during play.
• In squash, players are playing mainly in the back half of the court, unlike padel, where drop shots over the net bring the full court into play, forcing players to move up to the net.
• In squash, the enclosed walls right around the court are used to bounce off the ball as part of the game, unlike padel, where the enclosed mesh sections on your side of the net are out of bounds when playing a shot. You also need to ensure that the ball bounces before hitting the far-side walls of the padel court.

In Summary:  Playing padel singles poses a double whammy for a squash player. Not only is the court bigger than two end-to-end squash courts but the bouncier padel ball flies at you faster. In short, it means you have to run faster and further while negotiating that net that suddenly looms at you from nowhere!

No Law Stopping You

Luckily it is not against the law nor are there any rules that stop you from playing padel singles socially, so you will be safe from the proverbial padel police.

It is, however, best to stick to playing doubles with four players pairing-off on each side of the net if you don’t want to overextend yourself and in the process pick up an injury that may very well keep you from playing any sport for a good while. There’s a good reason why padel is played as a doubles match, after all.