We don’t play-test rackets ourselves. PadelGrade reads everything that has been published about a racket — specialist reviews, video analysis, verified owner ratings and manufacturer specs — and turns it into one comparable score. Every source we used is listed at the bottom of each review.
Most racket reviews are one person’s opinion after a few sessions. Useful, but impossible to compare: every reviewer uses a different scale, plays at a different level and tries a different handful of rackets. We do the opposite job — we read those opinions and turn them into one number that means the same thing on every racket we cover.
What goes into a grade
Four weighted components, identical for every racket.
| Weight | Component | What it is built from |
|---|---|---|
| 35% | Specialist consensus | Written reviews and video analysis from recognised reviewers, weighted by depth and by how independent the source is. |
| 30% | Owner consensus | Verified ratings and comments from people who bought the racket, where the sample is large enough to be meaningful. |
| 20% | Verified specs | Weight, balance, shape, core and face, taken from the manufacturer’s own datasheet. |
| 15% | Value | Street price against rackets of equivalent specification — not against the list price nobody pays. |
The four bars we publish on every racket — power, control, forgiveness and durability — come out of that same aggregation. They are not measurements we took.
The process
1. Collect every source we can find
Specialist reviews, video analysis, verified owner ratings and the official datasheet. Manufacturer copy and retailer descriptions count as spec data only, never as opinion.
2. Five sources minimum, or no score
Below five independent sources we publish the specs and say plainly that there is not enough evidence to grade it. An unsupported number is worse than no number.
3. Normalise to one scale
Every reviewer scores differently. We map each source onto the same 0-10 scale before combining anything, so that a 4/5 from one site and an 8.5/10 from another mean what they should.
4. Weight and combine
The four components above produce power, control, forgiveness and durability, and those produce the PadelGrade Score.
5. Record the disagreements
Where sources contradict each other we say so in the review instead of averaging it away. Knowing that reviewers are split on a racket is useful information.
6. Publish the sources, then add links
The full source list goes at the bottom of every review, with the date each one was consulted. Affiliate links are added last, after the grade is locked.
What we will never do
- Claim to have played with a racket we have not played with
- Accept payment, product or hospitality in exchange for a grade
- Publish a score built on fewer than five independent sources
- Change a grade because a commercial partner asked
- Hide the fact that a link earns us money
Where this method is weaker
We will say it before anyone else does: a reviewer who has actually played with a racket knows something we don’t, and no amount of aggregation replaces that. What we offer instead is coverage and comparability — one consistent criterion across every racket we cover, rather than a pile of unconnected opinions.
If a racket has been physically tested by us it carries a Tested badge. Any racket without that badge has been analysed, not played. As of today no racket carries it.
When we get it wrong
We re-grade when a manufacturer changes a frame mid-generation, when significant new sources appear, and when readers report behaviour that contradicts our score. Corrections go at the top of the review with the date and what changed — we don’t quietly edit a number.
If you want to know who is behind the method rather than what it is, that is on about PadelGrade. How we make money, and what that does and does not affect, is in our affiliate disclosure.