What should a padel beginner learn first?

Learn the underarm serve, a compact forehand and backhand, and where to stand. Positioning and keeping the ball in play win far more beginner points than power does.

Is padel difficult for beginners?

Padel is quick to start and slow to master. The court is small, the racket is short and solid, and the walls keep rallies alive, so most people manage rallies in their first session.

Can I play padel if I have never played tennis?

Yes. No tennis background is needed, and tennis players often have to shorten their swing and rethink how they use the walls, so complete beginners aren't at a disadvantage.

How do the walls work in padel?

An opponent's shot must bounce inside the court before it touches your glass or fence. After that bounce, the ball may rebound off the glass or fence and you can still return it, as long as you play it before a second bounce. You may also deliberately play the ball into your own glass so it travels over the net, provided the shot is otherwise legal. A serve that lands correctly and then touches the metal fence is a fault.

Where should beginners stand on a padel court?

Either both partners near the back of the court defending, or both partners at the net attacking. Avoid stopping in the transition area between the service line and the net.

Should beginners use a heavy or light racket?

Use a racket you can swing comfortably and control late in a session. A round shape with a low or medium balance is usually the most forgiving; the right weight depends on your strength, comfort and any injury history rather than a fixed number.

Can running shoes be used for padel?

They can be worn, but they're not well suited to it. Running shoes are built for forward motion and feel unstable in the repeated side-to-side movement padel demands, so court shoes with an outsole matched to the surface are a better choice.

How often should a beginner play padel?

Regular shorter sessions generally build skill faster than one long session every few weeks. Choose a frequency you can sustain and recover from rather than following a fixed weekly number.

What is the most common beginner mistake?

Hitting too hard from a defensive position instead of lifting the ball and resetting the point, closely followed by rushing backwards into a deep ball rather than letting it come off the glass.

Do you have to play padel in doubles?

Almost all padel is played as doubles, and most clubs only have doubles courts. Singles padel exists on narrower dedicated courts, but it's far less common.

Padel Tips for Beginners: 15 Essential Ways to Improve

Play smarter from your first session: positioning, control, wall rebounds, teamwork, serving and picking the right gear.

TipBy PadelFormat Editorial TeamPublished 21 April 2024Updated 23 August 202613 min read

Quick answer

The fastest way for a padel beginner to improve is to prioritise control over power, learn the underarm serve, keep your partner and yourself moving as one unit, let deep balls come off the back glass, and use the lob to take the net back. Padel is a positioning and patience game before it is a power game: most beginner points are lost through unforced errors, not won with winners. The tips below cover the rules you must know, the shots worth learning first, where to stand, what equipment actually matters and a short set of drills.

TL;DR

Choose control before power: most beginner points are lost to unforced errors, not won with winners.
Learn the underarm serve properly before adding pace.
Use compact forehand and backhand swings instead of a tennis-sized backswing.
Let deep balls come off the back glass instead of chasing them backwards.
Move forwards and backwards together with your partner as a pair.
Use the lob to win back the net when opponents control it.
Warm up for 10-15 minutes before playing and communicate with your partner during points.

On this page

What you need for your first match

You need very little to start. Most clubs rent rackets and sell balls, so the only thing you truly have to bring is footwear you can move sideways in.

Four players, since padel is doubles in almost every club session
A padel racket with the wrist strap attached (this is mandatory, not optional)
Padel balls, similar to tennis balls but with slightly lower pressure
Shoes built for court movement, matched to the surface you're playing on
Water, and a towel if the club doesn't provide one
A basic grasp of the underarm serve and how scoring works
Arrive 10–15 minutes early so you can actually warm up
Confirm the venue's scoring format and booking rules before you start

If you have never watched a match, start with our introduction to padel and its rules. It covers the court, the walls and the scoring in more depth than the summary here.

The 15 essential tips

Ordered roughly by how quickly each one changes the result of a match. The first five are worth working on in your very first sessions.

1. Choose control before power

Padel rewards the pair that keeps the ball in play. The court is enclosed, the walls give your opponents a second chance at almost everything, and a hard flat shot from the back usually comes back faster than it left. Beginners who simply return one more controlled ball win a surprising number of points without ever hitting a winner.

Hold the racket firmly enough to control the face but loose enough that your forearm isn't rigid. Prepare compactly, meet the ball in front of you, and finish smoothly towards your target. That doesn't mean every ball should be a gentle push. When you're balanced and the ball sits up in your strike zone, adding pace is the right call. The judgement you're building is when, not whether.

Common mistake: Swinging at full speed from a defensive position, off balance, behind the body.
Try this: Play the first three shots of every point at around 70% effort and only accelerate once you're balanced.

2. Start with a forgiving racket

A beginner-friendly racket is usually round, with the balance point low or in the middle and a large sweet spot in the centre of the face. That combination makes off-centre contact more forgiving and keeps the racket easy to manoeuvre when a ball arrives faster than expected. A softer core generally feels more comfortable on the arm at slower swing speeds.

There's no single correct weight for a beginner, and no weight that suits everyone of a given gender. Strength, playing history, joint comfort and personal preference matter more than a number on a spec sheet, so hold a few rackets before buying and borrow the club's demo rackets if they have them.

Common mistake: Buying a heavy diamond-shaped racket because a professional player uses one.
Try this: Hire or borrow two different shapes in the same session and notice which one gives you more clean contacts.

3. Wear shoes built for lateral movement

Padel is played sideways far more than forwards. Running shoes are built to push you in a straight line, and their soft, tall midsoles roll under sharp side-to-side loading, which is uncomfortable at best. Court shoes hold the foot over the sole during a change of direction and are far more stable in the corners.

Match the outsole to the surface: an omni or multi-court pattern suits sanded artificial turf, which is what most padel courts use, while a smooth indoor sole belongs on an indoor hard court. Many clubs will tell you which sole they prefer, and a few won't let you on court with marking soles at all.

Common mistake: Turning up in road-running shoes and sliding through the first hour.
Try this: Before your next session, check what surface your club uses and pick a sole pattern to match.

4. Learn the serve before you add speed

The padel serve is underarm and deliberately simple. 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 as you strike, and you serve for a whole game before it passes to an opponent.

A serve that lands correctly in the box and then touches the metal fence is a fault, so aim for a serve that lands and stays low rather than one that flies to the back of the box. Once the serve is away, both you and your partner will normally look to move forward towards the net.

The three steps of a legal padel serve: bounce behind the line, strike at or below waist height, land diagonally.

Common mistake: Treating the serve as a weapon and racking up double faults.
Try this: Serve twenty balls to the same target near the side glass before your next match and count how many land in.

5. Use compact forehand and backhand swings

A tennis-sized backswing takes too long in a court this size. The ball arrives sooner, the walls send it back again, and a big loop leaves you making contact late and behind your body. Shortening the preparation is the single fastest technical improvement most beginners make.

The cues are simple: prepare early, keep the racket relatively close to the body, make contact in front of you, finish towards your target and recover your position straight away.

Common mistake: Winding up behind the body and arriving late to the ball.
Try this: Rally for five minutes with your racket never travelling further back than your own shoulder.

6. Let deep balls reach the back glass

In padel the wall is your friend. When an opponent's shot bounces on your side of the court, it may rebound off your glass or fence and you can still play it, as long as you return it before it bounces a second time. That gives you an extra half-second on almost every deep ball, but only if you make room for it.

The service line is a handy reference while you learn. A shorter, slower ball landing in front of it can normally be taken before the glass. A deep or fast ball is often far easier after it's come off the back wall. Move back early, open a gap between you and the glass, let the ball come to you, and hit it as it drops away from the wall. Treat that as a rule of thumb, not an official boundary.

Short, slow balls can be taken before the glass. Deep or fast balls are usually easier after the rebound.

Common mistake: Chasing the ball backwards and getting squashed between the ball and the glass.
Try this: Feed ten deep balls to a partner and have them play every one after the rebound, never before it.

7. Move forwards and backwards with your partner

There are two solid team shapes in padel: both players defending near the back of the court, and both players attacking at the net. Points leak away in between, because a split pair leaves a large diagonal gap that opponents can find easily.

This doesn't mean standing perfectly level at every instant. It means that when one of you is forced back, the other drops back too, and when one of you earns the net, the other comes forward with them.

Both players attack together or defend together. The diagonal gap opens when the pair splits.

Common mistake: One player camping at the net while their partner defends alone at the back.
Try this: Agree with your partner before the match that you both retreat whenever either of you is lobbed.

8. Recover your position after every shot

The point doesn't end when you hit the ball. Beginners often stand and admire the shot, then find the reply arriving into the space they just left. Hit, then immediately move back to the attacking or defensive position the situation calls for.

Be particularly wary of stopping in the transition area between the service line and the net. It's a fine place to pass through on the way forward, and a poor place to stand: balls at your feet are hard to control and lobs over your head are easy for opponents to hit.

Attack from the net zone, defend from the back. Pass through the transition zone rather than standing in it.

Common mistake: Standing still in mid-court to watch the ball you just hit.
Try this: Say the word "back" or "in" to yourself immediately after each shot to trigger the recovery step.

9. Use the lob to win back the net

The lob is the most valuable shot for a beginner, because it solves the hardest problem in the game: opponents who already control the net. A good lob pushes them backwards and buys you and your partner the time to advance together.

Choose a ball you can lift under control. Send it high enough to clear the opponents comfortably and prioritise depth over extreme height. A very high but short lob is an invitation to be smashed. If the lob is deep, move forwards together. If it's short, stay back and defend.

Common mistake: Advancing behind a short lob and being smashed at the feet.
Try this: In your next set, answer every ball played at your feet from the back with a lob instead of a drive.

10. Play through the middle when you're under pressure

The centre of the court is a low-risk target: there's more net height to work with than down the line, less chance of clipping the side glass at an awkward angle, and it can create a moment of hesitation between two opponents who both think the ball belongs to the other.

It also narrows the angles available to them on the reply. That said, the middle isn't always the right answer. When you have an easy ball and an open corner, take the corner.

Common mistake: Trying to thread a narrow sideline while stretched and off balance.
Try this: Default to the middle whenever you're behind the service line and moving backwards.

11. Stop trying to smash every high ball

Most high balls at beginner level are not winners waiting to happen. A full smash from a deep position often bounces back off the glass to an opponent, lands out, or drags you out of position and gives up the net you just earned.

The alternative is a controlled overhead played with a smoother, more compact action, aimed to keep your opponents pinned at the back while you and your partner stay at the net. In Spanish this is usually called a bandeja: an overhead hit at around shoulder height with a slicing action, played for placement rather than power.

Common mistake: Jumping into a maximum-power smash from behind the service line.
Try this: Play the next ten overheads at half pace, aiming to land them deep and stay at the net.

12. Communicate before the ball reaches you

Padel is a conversation. Short calls ("mine", "yours", "leave", "up", "back", "switch") remove the split-second hesitation that decides most middle balls.

Communication matters most on balls down the centre, on lobs where one of you has to turn and chase, and on rebounds that temporarily pull a partner out of position. Call early: a call made as you swing is a call made too late.

Common mistake: Both players stopping for a middle ball because neither said anything.
Try this: Commit to calling every single middle ball out loud for one full set, even the obvious ones.

13. Aim for one more ball

Make consistency a deliberate tactic, not a fallback. Many beginner points end with an avoidable mistake instead of a clean winner, so the pair that keeps returning controlled balls collects points simply by staying in the rally.

This isn't passive play. You're still constructing the point: lifting when you're pressured, driving when you're balanced, and waiting for the ball you can genuinely attack.

Common mistake: Going for a spectacular winner on the third ball of the rally.
Try this: Set a target of four shots per rally before anyone in your pair attempts an attacking shot.

14. Practise simple, measurable drills

Fifteen minutes of focused practice before a match beats an hour of unstructured hitting. Each drill below needs nothing more than a court, a partner and a few balls, and each one has a clear measure of success so you can track progress week to week.

Keep sensible spacing when someone is feeding or serving, and practise wall rebounds on a proper padel court rather than against a garden or garage wall, where the bounce is unpredictable and the surroundings aren't designed for it.

Five simple padel drills for beginners, with what each one develops.
Drill	Players	Duration	What it develops
Cooperative mini-rally	2	5 minutes	Clean contact and racket control
Cross-court groundstroke rally	2	5 minutes	Direction and consistency
Serve-to-target practice	1–2	20 serves per side	Placement and a repeatable action
Back-glass feed and return	2	5–10 minutes	Rebound timing and footwork
Lob-and-advance drill	4	10 minutes	Transition and moving as a pair

Five beginner drills, each with a clear measure of progress.

Common mistake: Hitting aimlessly for an hour with no target and no feedback.
Try this: Pick two drills from the table and run them at the start of your next booking.

15. Warm up properly and play regularly

The LTA suggests allowing roughly 10–15 minutes to warm up before you play. Start with gentle movement to raise your heart rate, add lateral steps and lunges for the change-of-direction work padel demands, mobilise the shoulders and wrists, then finish with progressively fuller racket swings and a few easy rallies.

A warm-up prepares the body and sharpens your first few games; it can't guarantee you'll avoid injury. Beyond that, shorter sessions played consistently tend to build skill more effectively than one long, exhausting session every few weeks, but the right frequency is the one you can actually sustain around your body and your schedule.

Common mistake: Walking on court cold and serving at full speed in the first minute.
Try this: Book your court 15 minutes earlier than you need it and treat the warm-up as part of the session.

Beginner decisions at a glance

When a rally speeds up there is no time to think through six options. These defaults are the higher-percentage choice often enough to be worth making automatic.

Common beginner situations and the higher-percentage choice.
Situation	Better beginner choice	Common mistake
Deep, fast ball	Create space and use the back glass	Rushing backwards into the ball
Opponents control the net	Use a controlled lob	Trying a low winner from defence
High but difficult ball	Controlled overhead	Smashing off balance
Both opponents leave the middle	Play through the centre	Attempting a narrow sideline
Partner is forced backwards	Retreat and defend together	Remaining alone at the net
Under pressure	Add height and margin	Swinging harder

Scoring without the confusion

Padel uses the same 15, 30, 40, game scoring as tennis, and games are grouped into sets. At 40–40 a club match may play a deciding point rather than advantages, so ask before you start, because both formats are common and the difference decides tight games.

Social sessions often ignore that structure entirely and use a rotating format instead, where you change partners every round and count total points. If that is how your group plays, our Americano generator and Mexicano generator build a fair rotation and keep score for you. New padel vocabulary (bandeja, víbora, chiquita) is collected in the padel glossary.

An eight-session progression

A realistic order for the first couple of months, assuming roughly one session a week. Move on when the previous stage feels comfortable rather than when the calendar says so.

Sessions 1–2
Rules, the underarm serve, and forehand and backhand control.
Sessions 3–4
Back-glass rebounds and comfortable defensive positioning.
Sessions 5–6
Net movement, volleys and the lob.
Sessions 7–8
Partner movement, match decisions and the controlled overhead.

If you want to train the specific physical qualities the sport asks for, our guides to the muscles padel uses and improving your reflexes go a level deeper, and padel shots explained covers the technique behind each stroke named above.

Frequently asked questions

What should a padel beginner learn first?: Learn the underarm serve, a compact forehand and backhand, and where to stand. Positioning and keeping the ball in play win far more beginner points than power does.
Is padel difficult for beginners?: Padel is quick to start and slow to master. The court is small, the racket is short and solid, and the walls keep rallies alive, so most people manage rallies in their first session.
Can I play padel if I have never played tennis?: Yes. No tennis background is needed, and tennis players often have to shorten their swing and rethink how they use the walls, so complete beginners aren't at a disadvantage.
How do the walls work in padel?: An opponent's shot must bounce inside the court before it touches your glass or fence. After that bounce, the ball may rebound off the glass or fence and you can still return it, as long as you play it before a second bounce. You may also deliberately play the ball into your own glass so it travels over the net, provided the shot is otherwise legal. A serve that lands correctly and then touches the metal fence is a fault.
Where should beginners stand on a padel court?: Either both partners near the back of the court defending, or both partners at the net attacking. Avoid stopping in the transition area between the service line and the net.
Should beginners use a heavy or light racket?: Use a racket you can swing comfortably and control late in a session. A round shape with a low or medium balance is usually the most forgiving; the right weight depends on your strength, comfort and any injury history rather than a fixed number.
Can running shoes be used for padel?: They can be worn, but they're not well suited to it. Running shoes are built for forward motion and feel unstable in the repeated side-to-side movement padel demands, so court shoes with an outsole matched to the surface are a better choice.
How often should a beginner play padel?: Regular shorter sessions generally build skill faster than one long session every few weeks. Choose a frequency you can sustain and recover from rather than following a fixed weekly number.
What is the most common beginner mistake?: Hitting too hard from a defensive position instead of lifting the ball and resetting the point, closely followed by rushing backwards into a deep ball rather than letting it come off the glass.
Do you have to play padel in doubles?: Almost all padel is played as doubles, and most clubs only have doubles courts. Singles padel exists on narrower dedicated courts, but it's far less common.