You're about to play padel. Here's everything you need.

The court

A padel court is 20 metres long and 10 wide, enclosed by glass and mesh, and every surface inside it is part of the game.

That's roughly a third of the area of a tennis court, with a net across the middle standing 0.88 m at its centre. A line on each side, 6.95 m back from the net, marks the service boxes.

Here is the part nobody tells beginners: those service lines are the only lines on the floor that decide anything. There is no baseline to go long over and no tramline to miss. Once the serve is in, the walls are the boundary and the rest of the paint is decoration.

That one fact changes how the game feels. A ball that flies past you is not gone — it is about to come back off the glass, and you have far more time than you think.

Starting the point

Bounce the ball behind the service line, strike it at or below your waist, and send it diagonally into the box opposite. You get two attempts, exactly like tennis.

Stand behind the service line, between the centre line and the side wall, with at least one foot on the ground. Bounce the ball on the floor first — you cannot throw it up and serve out of the air — and make contact at or below waist height. It has to land in the service box diagonally opposite.

The receiver has to let it bounce. You cannot volley a serve in padel, which is the rule tennis players break first.

One padel-specific fault is worth learning early. If your serve lands in the box and then hits the mesh fence before bouncing again, it is a fault. If it lands in the box and comes off the glass, it is good. Glass fine, mesh fault.

The walls

After the ball bounces on your side of the court, you can play it off your own walls — as many as it touches. This is the shot that makes padel its own sport rather than small tennis.

The sequence is what matters. The ball must bounce on your floor first. After that it can hit your back wall, your side wall, or both in any order, and you can still play it. Your return is good as long as it clears the net and lands in their court.

What you cannot do is send the ball into their glass or their mesh without it bouncing on their floor first. Hit their wall on the full and you lose the point.

Their side is the mirror image. Once your shot has bounced in their court it can rattle around their walls all it likes and it is still live for them — their problem to solve, not a point for you.

And the shot people fall in love with: if a ball bounces properly and then flies out over the side wall, you are allowed to run out of the court and play it back in, on courts built with the space for it.

When the point ends

The point is over on the second bounce — or the moment a shot hits the mesh, lands on your own side, or catches the net on the way.

You lose the point if the ball bounces twice on your side; if your shot hits the mesh fence on the way over; if it lands on your own side; if you or your racket touch the net or reach into their court; if the ball hits you or your partner after you have hit it; if you serve two faults in a row; or if both of you play the same ball — only one of you may touch it.

Two more catch people out. Hitting the ball twice in one stroke loses the point, though it is not a double hit if you and your partner both swing and one clips the other's racket. And the wrist cord is not decorative: it is required by the rules, and if you drop the racket or the cord breaks, the point goes to the other pair.

Keeping score

Padel uses tennis scoring exactly: 15, 30, 40, game. Six games with two clear wins a set, and a match is the best of three.

At 40–40 it is deuce. At six games each you play a tie-break, first to seven points with two clear. You change ends after the first, the third and every following odd game.

Now the part that is not in tennis and catches everyone out. Most social padel, and much of the professional game, plays the golden point: at deuce, instead of playing advantage, a single point decides the game — and the receiving pair chooses which of them takes it. If someone calls “punto de oro” and moves to a different side, that is what just happened.

You will also meet the super tie-break. Rather than play a full third set, the pairs race to ten points instead. Common in tournaments, and in any game where the court booking is about to run out.

The unwritten rules

The rules that are not in the rulebook are the ones that decide whether you get invited back.

Whose ball is it? Down the middle, it belongs to whoever calls it first — so call it. The convention is that the ball belongs to the player it is moving away from, and to the backhand when it is genuinely between you, but a called ball beats a correct one every time.

Do not smash at people. The court is small, everyone is close, and a ball hit hard at someone is the fastest way to end a good evening.

Call your own lines generously and keep the ball moving. Long gaps between points are what make a social game feel like an exam.

And the one that matters most: everyone on that court was new once. Nobody minds a beginner. What people mind is someone who apologises after every point — so let the bad shots go and stay in the rally.

Your first game

Bring trainers and water. Everything else, rackets included, you can rent for your first few games.

Almost every club rents rackets by the hour, so there is no reason to buy one before you know whether you like the sport. Wear whatever you would go running in. Courts are usually booked in 90-minute blocks and split between four people, which makes a game about the price of a coffee and a beer.

Expect to be bad and to enjoy it anyway. Padel is unusual among racket sports in that beginners have real rallies on day one — the walls keep the ball alive, the court is small, and the racket is forgiving. That is why people who try it once tend to come back.

The harder part is the second game, because it needs three other people and a court at a time that suits all of you.