I got to know about the game of padel a good many years ago when visiting my Spanish friend living in Tarragona, Spain. Watching a game getting played under floodlights from the terrace of the local yacht club, I was intrigued.
It looked like tennis, but it wasn’t tennis. The court looked shorter, surrounded by – wait, was that glass? Then I noticed the stumpy, short-handled rackets the players were swinging about, and my mind boggled.
Now, many years later and living in Spain, I’ve started to play padel. I’m totally hooked but I first had to learn the tricks of how to play the game.
How to play padel? Padel is a racquet sport that gets played with a padel racket and padel ball on a specially designed court surrounded by a combination of glass and mesh. It gets scored the same way as a tennis doubles-match, and also has two players on each side of the net.
Padel is easier to learn than both squash and tennis even though it has elements of both. Read on to find out more about how to play Padel if you’re keen on taking up the sport, which is currently the fastest growing racket sport in the world. In Argentina and Spain, Padel is the second largest sport by participation numbers.
Easy To Learn, Difficult To Master
Playing padel is fun. It’s a thrill of movement and competition. But it requires much more skill than just hitting the ball back over the net as is the case with playing tennis.
One of the most difficult skills to master, especially if you come from a tennis-playing background, is to develop the instinct for using the glass walls as a way of initiating your shot. Your natural instinct is to run after a ball. In the case of padel, the key is to wait for the ball to bounce off the glass and come back to you.
The glass walls are either your friend or your enemy and it takes many hours of practice to finally figure out which is which and how to use both to your advantage.
Skill and Equipment
Although padel is played and scored similar to tennis, in reality, there are many differences between the game of Padel and the game of tennis.
In loose terms, it’s a tennis/squash hybrid. If you want to take up the game of padel, you need to learn the differences fast and make sure you get yourself properly equipped and acquire the necessary skills to master the game.
The Court
You can’t play padel on a tennis court. You’ll need to find a padel court specially designed for playing the game. The court is one-third the size of a tennis court and is enclosed with wire mesh and glass walls which you can play off when you need to. Padel is played entirely within four walls which players use to their strategic advantage.
The glass walls allow you to play the ball off the glass, like what you would do in a game of squash played off the walls. Yet it’s not the same as playing squash. It’s a totally different ball game altogether.
The court is also different from a tennis court in that it has no gates to close and there’s a good reason for it. Running in and out of the open gates to play the shot is just part of the game but takes many hours of practice to get the timing right. Click here to read more about the exact dimensions of a padel court.
The Padel Racket
Padel is played with a padel racket, also referred to as bat. It looks like a wooden bat but is not. It differs from a tennis racket in that it’s solid with no strings and has a much shorter handle.
The short handle serves two purposes: firstly, to better control the ball and secondly, to prevent you from going too wild, hitting the glass walls.
Padel racquets come in varying head shapes, grip lengths, thickness and weight. The frames are usually made out of fiberglass or carbon fiber. The racket you choose will be determined by whether you are a defensive or an attacking player.
But as a beginner, you don’t have to worry about choosing the best or the most expensive racket for now. Padel clubs often have some spare rackets available for beginners to borrow. Just get started playing the game first and the rest will follow. Learn more about padel racquets by clicking here.
Playing the Shot
Playing a padel shot is more about using a nifty wrist action than using the deep, and powerful swing of that of a tennis shot. The short handle of the bat means you’re playing off a closer range to your body, which gives you more control over the ball.
If you come from a tennis or squash background you will need to get a feel for playing the ball closer to your body. The good news is that this spacial awareness comes very quickly.
Sure, you can play hard and tightly skimming the net shots, especially when it comes to smashes. However, to play a successful smash will need to practice a lot before you’ll get it right.
Best to start off slow, find your grip on how the racket handles and get used to playing the ball off the glass wall. All players are permitted to play a ball off any of the walls on their own side of the court except for the wire mesh, which is out of bounds.
The Grip
To be able to control the shot, you need to learn the proper grip of the racket. In the game of padel, there are two different key grips you ought to master.
Firstly, there’s the continental grip, used by both beginners and professional players. Secondly, there’s the eastern forehand grip, which involves a special skill and requires a lot more practice.
To learn more about how to hold your padel racket using these two grips, here is a detailed article I wrote teaching these two padel racket grips. That article also teaches a third way to hold your racket in a way that lets you play more sneaky spin shots from tight against the wall.
The Service
Unlike tennis, where the service is done overhand (i.e. throw the ball up high and then smash it down into the service block), in padel, the service is done underhand, meaning you must bounce the ball once and then hit it below waist level.
This way it is easier to play the service, easier to return the ball and quicker to start a rally. Both the first and second service is played underhand.
Each game of a padel match begins with an underhand service from the right-hand service court into the opponent’s court diagonally across similar to tennis. The serve must land in the opponent’s service box.
Unlike tennis, you won’t aim for an ace. Instead, you‘ll try to find tight corners and technical spins. If the ball bounces in the service box and strikes the side or back wall, it is a valid service and must be played by the opposing player, if he or she is able to. If the ball lands in the service box and hits the wire fencing, it is considered a service fault.
The Ball
Padel balls may look similar to tennis balls but there is a difference. Firstly, the pressure in a padel ball is less than a tennis ball. The higher the pressure in the ball, the faster it goes and the higher it bounces.
This works well for playing tennis, but not for padel. Less pressure makes the balls less bouncy. This is important because the padel court is shorter and narrower than a tennis court. (See more about the dimensions of a padel court by reading this article that I wrote).
Secondly, with the ball being less bouncy, it makes it easier to control the bounce off the glass walls and play the shot. Learning to play the ball successfully off the glass wall is part of the secret of playing a good game of padel. Here is the detailed article that I wrote about all the differences between padel balls and tennis balls.
The Score
As mentioned before, a padel match gets scored the same way as a doubles tennis match. It gets scored 15-30-40-and then, GAME. Once the ball is served, it remains in play until the point is decided.
If there is a fault on the first service, a second service gets played. If that second service is also a fault, a “double fault” is called and loses the point. If the ball clips the net tape on an otherwise valid service a let is called, and that same service is repeated like a do-over.
If the game reaches 40 – 40, it is called deuce, then further points are played until one team manages to win two points in a row.
The first team to win 6 games wins the set. If the final score is equal (i.e. 6-6), the set goes into what is called a “tie break”. A tie break is played till one side achieves 7 points, but needs to be won by at least two points. If the score is 6 – 6 in the tiebreak, play continues until one side has a 2 point advantage. The match gets played the best out of three sets.
The Players
All play in the sport of padel is in a doubles format. To play a game of doubles, you need four players, two on each side of the net, just like doubles in tennis.
Playing doubles with a partner is always fun, but it requires a special chemistry between the pairing to do it well. As is the case in tennis, the doubles court is divided into four imaginary quarters, one quarter for each player.
Meaning, one player covers one side of the doubles court while the other player covers the net. The player serving stays near the backline. Their partner, in turn, covers the net.
Depending on the game, the attacking players may need to put additional pressure by both players covering the net, and in doing so, leaving them exposed at the back. This is where chemistry and a certain understanding between partners come into play. When to attack and when to back off and not fall over each other in the process.