Padel is a doubles racket sport played on an enclosed court roughly a third the size of a tennis court, where the glass walls are part of the game. You serve underarm, you score as in tennis, and you can play the ball off your own walls to keep the rally alive.
That last part is the whole sport. Everything else padel borrows — the scoring from tennis, the doubles format from anywhere, the underarm serve from nowhere in particular. The walls are what make it a different game to learn and a much easier one to enjoy in your first hour.
The court
A padel court is a fixed, standardised structure. There is no equivalent of clay versus grass: every court you play on has the same dimensions.
| Measurement | Size |
|---|---|
| Length | 20 m |
| Width | 10 m |
| Net height, centre | 88 cm |
| Net height, posts | 92 cm |
| Service line, from net | 6.95 m |
| Wall height, back | 3 m glass, plus 1 m mesh |
| Playing area | 200 m² — about a third of a tennis court |
The back walls and the lower part of the sides are glass or, on older courts, solid concrete. Above and along the rest is metal mesh. Both are in play. The full breakdown, including the narrower singles court, is in padel court dimensions.
How the walls work
One principle covers almost every situation: the floor comes first.
- A ball coming towards you must bounce on your floor before it touches any of your walls. After that bounce, it can rebound off the glass as much as it likes and you can still play it.
- A ball you hit must bounce on their floor before it touches any of their walls. A shot that flies over and hits the back glass on the full is out.
The practical effect: a shot that would be a clean winner in tennis comes back off the glass at a comfortable height, and the rally continues. Points last longer, and beginners get to hit the ball far more often than they would in tennis. It is the main reason people who have never played a racket sport can have a real game on day one.
Equipment
Three things, and only one of them costs real money.
| Item | What it is |
|---|---|
| Racket | Solid, stringless, perforated. Maximum 45.5 cm long, 26 cm wide, 38 mm thick. A foam core — usually EVA — under a fibreglass or carbon face. Must be attached to your wrist by a cord. |
| Ball | Looks like a tennis ball, is slightly smaller and noticeably less pressurised. The lower pressure is what keeps rallies long. |
| Shoes | Court shoes with a herringbone or “clay” sole. Running shoes have no lateral support and are the most common cause of a rolled ankle in the sport. |
Clubs almost always rent rackets, so you can play your first session for the cost of the court. When you do buy, the choice is narrower than the shops make it look — the reasoning is in how to choose a padel racket, and the graded ranking in best padel rackets.
Scoring
Identical to tennis: 15, 30, 40, game. Six games with a two-game margin takes a set, 6–6 goes to a seven-point tie-break, and a match is the best of three sets.
The one difference is deuce. Most padel — including the professional tour and most British club leagues — plays a golden point: at 40–40 a single rally decides the game, and the receiving pair chooses who takes it. It keeps matches inside a bookable 90 minutes.
Where padel came from
Padel was invented in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1969 by Enrique Corcuera, who enclosed a small court at his home with walls and adapted tennis rules to the space. A Spanish friend, Alfonso de Hohenlohe, built courts in Marbella in the mid-1970s, and from there the sport spread through Spain and, via Argentine visitors, across South America.
Spain and Argentina remain the sport’s centre of gravity; the professional tour and almost every top-ranked player still come from those two countries. The International Padel Federation (FIP) puts global participation at around 25 million players.
Padel compared with tennis and pickleball
| Padel | Tennis | Pickleball | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Court | 20 × 10 m, enclosed | 23.77 × 10.97 m, open | 13.4 × 6.1 m, open |
| Walls in play | Yes | No | No |
| Racket | Solid, perforated, no strings | Strung | Solid paddle |
| Serve | Underarm, after a bounce | Overhead | Underarm |
| Format | Doubles | Singles or doubles | Singles or doubles |
| Scoring | Tennis scoring, golden point | Tennis scoring | To 11, serving team only |
The two comparisons people actually search for are covered in full in padel vs tennis and padel vs pickleball.
Is padel hard to learn?
Easier than tennis, and the reason is mechanical rather than motivational. The racket is short, so the swing is short and there is less to go wrong. The serve is underarm, so the single hardest motion in tennis does not exist here. And the walls mean that a ball you fail to reach in time often comes back to you.
What is hard in padel arrives later: knowing when to lob rather than drive, moving to the net as a pair, and the bandeja, a controlled overhead that has no equivalent in other racket sports. Most people have a genuine rally in their first hour and are still working on the bandeja three years in.
Frequently asked questions
Is padel the same as paddle tennis?
No. Padel is the enclosed, walled, doubles-only sport described here. Paddle tennis — and platform tennis, and POP tennis — are separate American sports with different courts and rules. The spelling confusion is constant and the games are not related.
Can you play padel on your own or in singles?
Singles padel exists but needs a narrower court, 6 m rather than 10 m wide. Standard club courts are built for doubles, and doubles is what you will find.
Do you need to be fit to play padel?
No more than for a brisk doubles game of anything. The court is small, so you cover much less ground than in tennis; what padel asks for is short, repeated changes of direction rather than sustained running.
How much does it cost to play padel?
In Britain, a court booking is typically £20 to £40 an hour split between four players, and most clubs rent rackets for a few pounds. Your first session costs less than a cinema ticket.
Why is padel growing so fast?
Three reasons that reinforce each other: it is easy enough to enjoy on day one, it is doubles-only so it is social by design, and a court occupies a third of the footprint of a tennis court, so clubs can fit several where one tennis court stood.
Sources. Rules of Padel and participation figures, International Padel Federation (FIP), consulted 30/08/2026 · LTA Padel, court specification and history, consulted 30/08/2026. Origin dates as recorded by the FIP.