Ten mistakes beginners make in their first month of padel

The first month of padel is great fun and slightly chaotic. You’ll hit some lovely shots and still come off court with no idea why the other pair kept winning. Most of that comes down to a small set of habits that almost every beginner has, especially anyone arriving from tennis or squash.

None of these are hard to fix once you know they’re there. Here are the ten we’d look out for, grouped by where on court (or off it) they happen.

Before you get on court

1. Buying a pro’s racket in week one

It’s tempting to buy the racket your favourite player uses. Those rackets are usually stiff, head-heavy diamonds built for people who hit the ball very hard and very cleanly. In a beginner’s hands they’re unforgiving and harder on the arm. A round, soft, lighter racket will make you better faster, and choosing your first racket explains what to look for.

2. Turning up cold, in running shoes

Padel feels gentle until you lunge for a drop shot. Calf strains and rolled ankles are among the common padel injuries, and stepping out of the car and straight into full-speed rallies in running trainers makes both more likely. Spend five minutes getting warm before the knock-up, and wear shoes made for sideways movement. Running shoes are the wrong tool, for reasons we went into in padel shoes.

At the back of the court

3. Hitting everything as hard as you can

Power feels like the answer, and on a tennis court it often is. On a padel court, a hard drive from the back usually hits the back glass at the other end and comes out at a nice height for your opponents to put away. The walls give experienced players time to deal with pace.

Slow it down and aim low over the net. At club level, far more points are lost through errors than won with winners, so a ball that keeps coming back is a weapon in itself. Tennis players find this one hardest, which is why it leads the list in padel for tennis players.

4. Panicking when the ball goes past you

Beginners tend to do one of two things when the ball heads for their back glass: lunge at it before it gets there, or back right up against the wall and get tangled up. Neither works.

Turn sideways and move back with the ball, giving it room to come off the glass towards you. Think of a ball off the back wall as a second chance. It often gives you more time than hitting it before the wall would.

5. Treating the other side’s walls like squash

The walls on your side are yours to use. The walls on their side aren’t. Your shot has to bounce on the floor of their half before it touches their glass or mesh, and if it hits their wall first, it’s out. It’s an easy habit to bring over from squash, and it usually shows up as a lovely-looking drive that clips the top of their back glass on the full.

6. Getting the racket ready too late

Padel is played in a small space, so the ball reaches you quickly. If your racket is hanging by your knees between shots, you’ll be late on almost everything at the net. Keep it up in front of your chest, and turn your shoulders as soon as you know which side the ball is coming to. Your contact gets cleaner almost straight away.

Where you stand

7. Living in no man’s land

There are two good places to be on a padel court. At the back, you want to be about a step behind the service line. At the net, you want to be a couple of metres from it, roughly level with the second post of the side fence.

The strip between those two spots is known as no man’s land, and it’s where the ball arrives at your feet. Pick one place or the other and move through the middle quickly. The positioning and tactics guide has diagrams of both.

8. Playing as two singles players

Padel is a doubles game in a way tennis doubles often isn’t. If you go forward, your partner goes forward. If they drop back, you drop back. Think of a rope between you: you should stay roughly level, a few metres apart, and slide across the court together.

Talk to each other, too. A short “mine” or “yours” on every ball down the middle stops you both going for it, or both leaving it.

When the ball goes up

9. Smashing every high ball

A lob floating towards you feels like an invitation to hit it as hard as you can. Most of the time, it isn’t. A full smash from near the service line, or while you’re still backing away, either goes out or bounces up off their back glass for an easy return.

Unless you’re close to the net and well balanced, play a controlled overhead into the corner and keep your place at the net. That shot is the bandeja, and the bandeja and víbora guide takes you through it. If the lob is deep, let it come off the back glass and play it from there.

10. Lobbing too low, or not at all

The lob is the shot that gets you out of trouble when both opponents are crowding the net. Beginners either forget it exists or play it too low and too short, which hands the other pair an easy smash.

A good lob goes high and deep, landing well past the service line, so the players at the net have to turn and chase it. That gives you and your partner time to move forward and take the net yourselves.

Fixing them without overthinking it

Ten things is a lot to hold in your head during a game, so don’t try. Pick one for each session, ideally the one that cost you most points last time, and focus on it. One thing at a time is also how to practise padel when you only play once or twice a week.

If you lost a lot of points with smashes, make your rule “only smash when I’m close to the net”. If you were stuck in the middle of the court, make it “back by the service line or up at the net, nothing in between”.

The walls take longest to come right, because you need a lot of balls off the glass before your feet stop panicking. A group lesson speeds that up, and so does asking the strongest player at your club social to hit you a few deep ones during the warm-up. The guide to playing off the glass is good reading before you do.

Next on the blogHow to hold a padel racket: the continental grip