Padel

What is Padel?

Padel is a racket sport typically played in doubles on an enclosed court slightly smaller than a doubles tennis court. Scoring is the same as normal tennis, and the balls used are similar but with a little less pressure. The main differences are that the court has walls and the balls can be played off them, and that solid, stringless bats are used. The height of the ball being served must be at or below the waist level.

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How to play Padel

Padel is a team sport in which we play with a partner to face another couple. That means we need 4 atheletes to play.

Padel imports the scoring system of tennis. Matches are played to the best of 3 sets. The games follow the score of 15, 30, 40, Advantages and / or Equals. Since 2020, the use of golden point at 40-40 has been implemented in the professional circuit.

As in tennis, we change side courts in the odd games. Thus, we will change sides with 1-0, 2-1, 3-2, 4-3, 5-4... The ball can be hit indistinctly by any player in any zone of the court.

In padel, for the ball to be considered good it must touch the ground before hitting the walls or fences. The only exception is with the serve, when we serve, the ball can only hit the wall after the bounce, never the fence. During the course of a point the ball may hit the walls and fences. The player may hit the ball with or without a bounce depending on the situation of the point.

Serving rules

The serve is considered good if the ball bounces inside the corresponding cross-quadrant. As in tennis, the serve must be crossed, that is to say, the player serving from the right half of his court must direct the serve towards the square to his left in the opponent's court. Unlike tennis, the ball is not thrown over the head to serve. In padel, the player must bounce the ball and can't hit it above the waist. The serve can go to any area of the opponent's square, but can never hit the side fence after the bounce.

On each service we have two opportunities to put the ball in play, that means if we missed our first service on the net or the ball bounces out, we still have another try. When the ball touches the net after the serve and goes to the other side of the court, there are several situations:

• If after touching the net, the ball does not bounce in the corresponding square it will always be bad.
• If after touching the net, the ball bounces in the corresponding square these situations can happen:

1. The ball bounces once and does not touch the side fence -> It is considered null and the player has the right to repeat that service.
2. The ball bounces twice and touches the side fence -> It is considered null and the player has the right to repeat that service.
3. The ball bounces once and touches the side fence -> It is considered bad and the player is not entitled to repeat that service.

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