My first padel match lasted much shorter than I’d anticipated. When I stepped onto the court as a beginner, I felt fairly confident. I knew how to play tennis, after all. The match lasted all of an hour. But not so fast. Slow down. Stop. Playback in slow motion. When I watched the replay, I was shocked. It turned out that, in reality, I only had about 15-20 minutes of actual playtime out of the 60 minutes spent on the court. What a shocker! It begs the question: How long is a padel match?
How long is a padel match? A padel match is played the best out of three sets. The duration of the match varies, depending on the level of play and the level of the competition. Amateur matches can last as little as an hour or less. Top-level matches can last up to 150 minutes or longer to determine the winning pair of the match.
The duration of a padel match depends on many various factors such as the level of play and level of competition as well as the age and possibly the gender of the players. Let’s find out more about how the clock ticks along when these different levels of matches are played.
The Long And The Short Of Padel Matches
A game of padel gets scored exactly the same way as a tennis doubles match. The duration of the match, just as in tennis, all depends on how skilled the players are. When you’re a beginner, you’re most likely there for the social and fun part of the game. Mucking around, while trying to get a handle on that ball bouncing off the glass wall without making a total fool of yourself when hitting a whole lot of fresh air.
On the other hand, when Spain’s Paquito and Lebron (WPT top-ranked players) step onto the court, they mean business. There’s no mucking around. Elite matches require great technical as well as tactical skills, endurance and mental strength and could last up to 150 minutes to determine the winners.
Let’s have a closer look at how this all get played out on the court on TWO LEVELS:
The Level of Play
The level-of-play refers to the level of technical as well as tactical skills the players have. The more skilled the players are, the longer the duration of the actual playtime they’ll enjoy on the court e.g.:
The Beginners: Out of 60 minutes of court time, beginners may end up with between 15 -20 minutes only of actual playtime. The rest of the time may be spent picking up balls, hitting some air, and running into the surrounding walls/mesh in between fits of laughter.
Of course, it’s all great fun but usually ends up with little real play, which means, as a beginner you’ll need to put in more time and effort into acquiring the necessary skills to be able to play a proper three-set match lasting about 60 minutes.
The Amateurs: Amateur players, who have acquired some technical skills, may end up enjoying 40 -45 minutes of actual play time out of 60 minutes of court time. Often than not, at this level, things become much more competitive, with the players having their eyes set on a definitive win.
The majority of amateur players at this level usually come from a strong tennis background, which means they’ve got some good ball sense and a knack for racket sports. Their skills may not be quite top-notch to be on an elite level but could be strong enough to make them play a solid one hour match, building up a sweat.
The Elite players: With their superior technical and tactical skills, elite players are on a different level altogether and in a class of their own the same as is the case in elite tennis. Out of 60 minutes of court time, elite players will likely get between 50-55 minutes of actual playtime, with only 5-10 minutes of resting interval time.
Skills include the ability to volley, slice, spin and smash and most importantly, the ability to play off the glass walls as a way of initiating their shots successfully. Advance skills will lead to longer rallies, increasing the overall playtime.
The Level of Competition
The higher the level the competition is (World Padel Tour and World Padel Championships), the tougher the opposition, especially on an elite level. When elite players step onto the court, the heat is on from the word go. On this level of competition, players are out there to WIN. It’s an “all-or-nothing”–cut-throat game. Let’s have a look at how things could possibly play out during an elite match:
The First Set:
The first set is always interesting to watch. It’s almost as if the players are finding their rhythm and get in sync to play as a pair while feeling out their opponents. Nerves need to be settled, especially when there is a clear favorite, favored by the home crowd.
The first set can deliver some surprising results e.g. the favorites suddenly find themselves getting thrashed 6-0 or 6-2 by the opponents. The first set can last between 35-45 minutes, but this can always change when it comes to The Master Final, where the outcome is almost like playing a round of Russian-roulette.
The Second Set:
The second set is known as the make or break set for the pair who lost the first set. The second set often lands up in a tie break where the first-set losing pair now has to equalize the score if they want to stay in the game.
This is referred to as Batalla Titánica, or the Titanic Battle, which can also swing both ways. This fight for domination doesn’t only impact on the duration of the overall match, it’s also a huge crowd pleaser!
This crucial second set could last up to an hour, depending on how successful the formerly losing pair’s counter-attack is against their opponents in order to regain control over the match. Usually, a two-set match may end up lasting between 60 or 90 minutes, depending on the skills and tactical attacks of the players.
But not always, sometimes those closer 2-set matches edge out beyond 100 minutes.
The second set often ends in a narrow margin.
The Third Set:
If the match proceeds into a third set after two sets ended with a 1-1 score on the scoreboard, anything goes. The third set may end up in either another Titanic Battle or in colossal disappointment.
All depending on who you supporting. Once again, there is no hard and fast rule. But often than not, it been shown that the winners of the second set seem to use the momentum they’ve gained in the second set to swiftly take control and wrap up the third and final set in just over 35 minutes. It is usually a combination of superior skill, effective attacking play, and supreme fitness.
However, sometimes it boils down to nothing more than mental resilience. With this picture in mind, let’s have a quick look at the World Padel Tour Master Final.
The Master Final
The Master Final is the last and most prestigious Tournament to finish off the season. The Masters Final not only offers up the biggest prize, but it also stirs up enough emotion to bring the packed crowds and in turn, the big sponsors.
Although the firm favorites may be in the running, there also may be one or two dark horses trampling into the arena, hungry to claim the prize.
The final result is as unpredictable as rolling dice – it can go either way. Sometimes, a final with high expectations from the crowd may fail to deliver on the “promise” and finish in a disappointing two-set match – over in a mere 90 minutes clash.
Finals such as the Women’s Final 2019 in Barcelona are the stuff that thrilling padel is made of. It kept the crowd on edge of their seats for a few seconds shy of 180 minutes!
Other Factors Impacting on the Duration of A Padel Match
Rallies:
Studies conducted by Sciendo Human Kinetics showed significant differences were found between winners and losers length of rallies and effectiveness e.g.:
- Players’ scoring ability in padel is strongly related to the players’ effectiveness at the net, enhancing their winning chances.
- Winners played longer rallies than losers, particularly when scoring and making forced errors.
- More specifically, the longest winners’ errors were made at the net, while the longest points were scored at the baseline.
- Winners played longer rallies compared to losers, resulting in better performance.
In Summary: The longer the rallies between players last, the longer the duration of the match.
Age
Age may play a role in the duration of a padel match. Padel is known as a high-intensity sport and requires some decent level of cardiorespiratory capacity and muscular endurance. Older players, over 50, seem to have shorter rallies, lower effort output and longer resting interval time between shots. See this article that I wrote that covers this in more detail.
Gender
Gender may play a role in the way a match gets played, which determines the duration and outcome of the match.
In general, women tend to play with less powerful shots and more tactical placement of the ball, unlike the men, who regularly power smashes away to score the point fast.
It’s not to say that women don’t play smashes, just that on average, it seems like women tend to lob much more often as a way to force opponents onto the baseline of the court, as a way of putting pressure on the opponents by attacking from the net.
The Longest Padel Match
In September 2016 four Romanian padel players made history when they broke the world record for playing the longest padel match after playing the game for 25 hours straight.
The four players, Adrian Vodislav, Adrian Barbu, Gabi Moraru, and Dan Lazar played the match to set a new world record for Guinness World Record. Besides setting a new world record, the event’s purpose was to raise funds for two programs carried out by Save the Children Romania.
But, of course, this was not a WPT sanctioned tournament match.
