What is padel? A complete introduction to the sport

If you're asking what is padel: a doubles racket sport, played two against two on an enclosed 20-by-10-meter court where the glass walls are part of the game. It scores like tennis and the serve is underhand. It's pronounced PA-del — rhymes with "paddle" — not pa-DELL.

What is padel, exactly?

Padel is played two against two on a court about three-quarters the area of a doubles tennis court, enclosed by glass back walls and metal mesh. You win points the same way tennis players do, but the ball can rebound off the walls and stay live, which keeps rallies going far longer than in tennis. The rackets — palas — are solid with a perforated face, no strings, and the balls look like tennis balls but carry slightly less pressure.

Doubles isn't a variant here; it's the sport. Official courts are built for four players, and virtually every match at a club is 2v2. Singles courts exist — narrower, at 20 by 6 meters — but they're rare.

Padel meaning and how to pronounce padel

The word comes from the Spanish pádel, itself borrowed from the English "paddle" — so the padel meaning is literally just "paddle," after the solid bat. Stress the first syllable: PA-del. Say "paddle" with a slightly crisper second syllable and nobody at a club will blink.

The sport was invented in 1969 by Enrique Corcuera, a Mexican businessman who enclosed a 20-by-10-meter court at his home in Acapulco because he didn't have room for a full tennis court. Friends carried it to Spain and Argentina in the 1970s, and those two countries still form the sport's spine.

The court: glass walls change everything

An official padel court measures 20 meters long by 10 meters wide. The back walls stand 4 meters tall — 3 meters of tempered glass topped by a meter of mesh. The net is 88 cm high at the center, 92 cm at the posts.

The walls are what make padel padel. A ball that bounces on your side and then hits the glass is still in play — you can take it off the rebound, and experienced players deliberately let fast balls run to the back wall because the rebound buys them time. You can even hit the ball into your own glass to send it back over the net. What you can't do is let the ball reach a wall before it bounces on the court: ground first, glass second.

How padel scoring works

Padel copied tennis scoring wholesale: 15, 30, 40, game. Six games win a set with a two-game cushion, a tiebreak settles a set at 6–6, and matches run best of three sets.

The one fork in the rules is deuce. Traditional scoring plays advantage — win two points in a row from 40–40. Most club matches and many tournaments instead play a golden point: at 40–40 the next point decides the game, and the receiving pair chooses which of them returns. Ask before your match; both are legitimate, and the pro tour keeps experimenting with hybrids of its own.

Because the counting is pure tennis but the rallies are longer and messier, new players lose the score constantly — a three-wall exchange will wipe the count from anyone's head. Padel Scoreboard, a padel scoreboard app for iPhone and Apple Watch that tracks match scores, takes that job off the court so nobody has to reconstruct the game from memory.

The serve is underhand — and that's the point

Every padel serve follows the same sequence: bounce the ball behind the service line, strike it at or below waist height, and send it diagonally into the opposite service box. At least one foot must stay on the ground behind the line at contact, and you get two attempts, as in tennis. After landing in the box the serve may carry on into the glass and stay live — but if it hits the mesh fence before the second bounce, it's a fault.

That underhand serve is a big reason the sport spreads so fast. Tennis gates beginners behind the hardest shot in the game; padel's serve is learnable in minutes, so points start with a rally instead of a double fault.

Padel vs tennis vs pickleball

People lump the three together, but they split cleanly:

	Padel	Tennis	Pickleball
Court	20 × 10 m, enclosed	23.77 × 10.97 m (doubles), open	13.41 × 6.10 m, open
Walls	In play	None	None
Serve	Underhand, after a bounce	Overhead allowed	Underhand
Scoring	15–30–40, sets	15–30–40, sets	To 11, win by 2
Racket	Solid, perforated, stringless	Strung	Solid paddle
Ball	Pressurized felt, slightly soft	Pressurized felt	Perforated plastic

The short version: padel plays like tennis shrunk and enclosed, while pickleball belongs to a different family — different scoring, plastic ball, different rhythm.

Why padel is the fastest-growing racket sport

Padel is routinely described as the fastest-growing racket sport in the world, and the growth has structural causes rather than marketing ones.

The floor is low: the walls forgive overhit balls, the serve takes minutes to learn, and real rallies happen in a player's first session. The format is social by default — always four people, lots of talking between points. And the economics favor it: two or three padel courts fit in the footprint one tennis court needs with its run-offs, so a club that converts multiplies its capacity. Spain and Argentina built the base over decades; the last ten years added the rest of Europe, the Middle East, and now the US, with a professional tour, its own majors, and national federations on every continent.

FAQ

How to pronounce padel

PA-del, stress on the first syllable — essentially "paddle" with a Spanish accent. The pa-DELL version you'll hear sometimes comes from reading the word cold. Both get understood; PA-del is what players say.

What is padel tennis?

The same sport — "padel tennis" is simply the longer name some countries use so newcomers place it faster. In Britain, for instance, the sport is governed by the Lawn Tennis Association. If you see courts advertising padel tennis, expect exactly the game described above.

What is padel sport like for a total beginner?

Friendlier than tennis by a wide margin. Most beginners hold real rallies in their first hour because the underhand serve and the forgiving walls keep the ball in play. The hard part isn't hitting the ball — it's learning to trust the glass and let balls rebound instead of chasing everything.

Can you use tennis balls for padel?

They look identical, but padel balls carry slightly less pressure, so they come off the glass a touch slower and stay more controllable. A tennis ball works fine for a casual rally. Matches use proper padel balls.

Is padel in the Olympics?

Not yet — it has never appeared on an Olympic program, and it isn't on the Los Angeles 2028 list either. The international federation has made inclusion a stated goal, and the sport's spread across national federations is a step in that direction.