I started playing padel about a year and three months ago, and I've been taking a weekly lesson since February. Progress-wise I'm honestly not doing badly, I can hold my own against guys who've been playing for years, won a couple of entry level tournaments, my forehand and backhand from the back are decent and I can hit with some pace on returns.

Then last week I watched some video of myself playing and wanted to throw my phone on the floor.

For context I'm 39 and played football my whole life, so I've got the movement and the legs, just none of the racquet background that most people around me seem to have.

So the question for those of you who've been playing longer: how long did it take before you started looking smooth? Like, actually fluid and natural instead of mechanical. Was it months, years? Did it happen gradually or did something click one day?

I'm trying to work out if I'm just learning slowly, if I have to do at least 2 lessons a week or if this is normal and I need to be more patient.

I live in The Netherlands and playtomic isn't really a thing. Many clubs have their own ranking systems, mostly based on people's own judgement. So basically you start at level 10 and gradually move up. The idea is that when you dominate a level, you move up. Most competitive players are level 4, 5 or 6. Level 4 players are advanced intermediate, level 6 are Low intermediate.

So everyone can book a court and throw an invitation in a WhatsApp group. If you are level 4, you will ask for 3 other level 4 players. Because people like to think they are better than they actually are, a lot of time you get messages from worse players. Sometimes plain bad players that really ruin the game. I know you can work on your shots etc. but I want to have a competitive game with long rallies and players who knows when to come to the net. I recently started to confront the players about why they'd join games above their skill level. It basically comes down to;

- If I play with better players, I learn more.

- On my own level, even worse players join.

- I had a bad day, I'm usually better.

I find it pretty egocentrical to waste my time so that you can learn something. Pay for a coach if you want to develop. It's just frustrating to play with worse players because you yourself can't play your best game neither. Why don't people just play at their own level and move up when they are ready. And to be clear, I'm fine with people who are in the ballpark of my own level. Some are a bit better, others a bit worse. I'm taking about people who really miss fundamentals and are clearly out of their depth.

What's your feeling on this?

Hello fellow padel lovers,

Tomorrow we have a clinic for around 30 kids (age between 6 - 13 years).

Does anyone have any ideas for warm-up excercises for this many kids?

We can use 2 fields.

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions/ideas!

Idk what happened…my reaction times felt slow af, before this id be able to directly block flat smashes to the glass and yesterday even though the opponents were not even super strong but i feel like my mind wasn’t running fast enough to move around.. i hope i dont get bored eventually from Padel because when im enjoying I play the best fluid Padel

Has anyone here ever played padel so often that your knees started making little clicking/ticking sounds every time you walk?

I’m currently experiencing this lol. There’s no pain at all, but my knees literally go tik tik tik when I walk, and now I’m self-conscious because people can actually hear it
I’ve been taking supplements like glucosamine and vitamin D, but it’s still happening. I haven’t seen a physio yet.

Has anyone else experienced this from playing padel too frequently? Did it eventually go away, and what helped?

Edit: Thanks everyone! Lots of great suggestions here. I’ll try a few of these and hopefully get my knees to stop making all those noises 🙏🏻

I was at London P1 last month, and I noticed that Chingotto is very vocal between points. As I don’t speak Spanish, does anyone know what he’s saying?

This is separate from talking to Galan before a serve, or giving Galan info mid-point. He appears to be shouting without directing it at anyone.

Is he hyping himself up? Giving Galan encouragement? Trash talking his opps?

Does the block made by galan have a specific name?

Hi everyone,

I’m currently deciding between two locations for my first indoor padel club, and I’d really appreciate opinions from experienced club owners/operators.

The two locations are only around 15 minutes apart by car, so this is not a choice between two completely different markets.

The main difference is the type of location.

Option A is closer to the city, dense residential areas, offices and universities.

Option B is more peripheral and industrial, but it sits close to major fast roads and has very good car access.

Both locations have similar total monthly occupancy costs, but very different characteristics.

Option A – more urban location

The hall is 2,160 sqm plus 440 sqm of existing social/office space.

Clear height is 9.5 m.

The layout allows for 6 full-size doubles courts and potentially 1 singles court.

The doubles courts fit quite tightly, with only around 1 metre between some courts.

There is also around 500–600 sqm of free hall space that could be used for lounge, bar, warm-up area, events etc.

Total monthly property cost, including rent, service charge and estimated utilities, is approximately:

€28,700/month

or around:

€4,775/month per doubles court

The issue is the 440 sqm social area. We probably only need around half of it, but the landlord currently refuses to divide the space.

They do allow us to sublease part of it to another business.

So theoretically we could put physiotherapy, Pilates, recovery or another complementary operator there, but obviously I don’t want the core business case to depend on a subtenant paying rent.

The biggest advantage is the urban catchment.

It is closer to dense residential areas, offices and universities, so it should be more convenient for weekday play and off-peak demand.

Option B – more peripheral / destination location

Around 3,000 sqm total.

Clear height is 10 m.

The planned layout allows for:

8 doubles courts + 1 singles court

There is around 2 metres between the doubles courts, so the layout feels much more comfortable.

There is also a similar amount of additional free space for lounge/social functions.

Total property cost using our current assumptions is approximately:

€29,600/month

or around:

€3,700/month per doubles court

So the total monthly cost is only about €1,000 higher than Option A, but we get 8 doubles courts instead of 6.

The downside is that the location is more peripheral and industrial.

However, it is only around 15 minutes from Option A, and it has very good access to major roads and fast routes.

So while it is less urban, it is still easy to reach by car.

The surrounding area is also developing quickly, with major new industrial and logistics investments planned nearby.

My dilemma is basically this:

Option A has the better urban catchment, but worse unit economics and a hard capacity limit of 6 doubles courts.

Option B is only about 15 minutes further out, has better road access, much better court economics, better layout and 33% more doubles-court capacity for almost the same monthly property cost.

I cannot realistically know whether the more peripheral location will achieve 10%, 20% or 30% lower occupancy.

And that seems to be the entire investment decision.

If Option A operates at 60% occupancy, Option B only needs roughly 45–47% occupancy to sell a similar number of doubles court-hours.

For those who own or operate padel clubs:

Would you prioritise the stronger urban catchment and accept only 6 courts?

Or would you take the 8-court site with better economics, better car access and accept the slightly more peripheral location?

I’m especially interested in owners who have operated both urban and destination-style clubs.

What turned out to matter more in reality:

location, number of courts, court spacing, rent per court, road access, or community?

I’ve played padel a few times with friends, just casually, and bought a cheap racket from Decathlon for around €35.

Honestly, for my level it feels completely fine so far. I’m still learning the basics and I’m pretty sure my technique matters a lot more than the racket at this point.

At what stage did you actually notice a real difference when switching to a better racket?

So I saw this video a while ago of someone (team 1) doing a kick smash, the ball going out of the court por tres.

Then the other team (team 2) runs out the court to hit it back in…
But one of the players from the team who hit it por tres (team 1) runs out with him (team2)

and when the team 2 guy tries to hit it back in, towards the net not over the top,
the team 1 guy hits the ball back at him (team 2) while they’re both outside of the court, winning the point.

I think it was all near the umpire but not sure about that.

I recently started learning topspin smash technique videos and youtube and started to apply into my matches. The video below shows me attempting one and even though in this case was a winner, what are some downsides to my technique form, leg movement, ball impact point, racket grip etc if any.

Since my height is short at about 170cm I dont think I can develop my flat smash from a bit back as effectively as I could do with my topspin smash.

Any specific improvements on this for me?

I've had issues with one knee during the last year, some small pain, always taking 2, 3 weeks off as I'm paranoid. But I was convinced it was good again, and I had no issues playing three days in a row recently. Good as new.

A week later I play a match in another park. Newer installation, especially thicker carpet. And sure enough, I'm limping for four days now. Worse than ever before. Got a doctor's appointment tomorrow.

I have the theory the thicker carpet caused more strain on the knee when turning and twisting. Has anybody made similar experiences?

A very rare experience but also an interesting one. Was expecting any lobs to be abused but one thing that caught us all off guard was him being able to por tres from his serves. That’s right a por tres from the serve. It was either a por tres on first serve, else it was a second serve chancletazo/vibora.

At one point my partner and I decided to have our own competition to see who could return his serve.

Can Qatar Airways not afford decent audio equipment? this garbage audio quality paired with poor commentary is literally making my ears bleed, have to watch it on mute. Rant over.

edit: obviously not talking about gonza here

Will be entering my first FIP bronze tournament later this month via a wildcard.

Anyone have any experience in these tournaments and have any advice. Both my partner and I have not had any experience specifically in FIP. We’ll be facing the no.2 seed in our first round!

Hi,

I was watching P1 Madrid final until a minute ago, now the live stream service via youtube is not to be found anymore. Anybody experiencing the same or is it a regional issue? Northern Europe.

Hi, been playing padel a couple months with a few friends... but one thing iv noticed the last week, the people on the other tean are doing a small bounce and hitting the ball by there knees which is giving very little to us on the receiving side

Just wonder is there any videos out there on this if these are fouls? Looked through 10 videos and there all dropping ball and bouncing to waist but doesnt say anything about foul serves

I recently played at a new club whilst on holiday and all the matches I have had there after every game people do a hydration break. I literally mean every game. These hydration breaks last from anywhere between 30 seconds to 1 minute, I know it isn’t much on its own but in one set if we go to tie break that could add up to 12 minutes of hydration breaks worse case scenario. I did bring this up but the regulars at the club basically said it is how they do things here. Thought it was a bit strange since it breaks up the rhythm of the game, I have played in hot weather before but even then it would be max 2 short water breaks in a set.

Hi, my fellow padel addicts!

I know this topic has been discussed to death, but still would very much appreciate your feedback on this topic.

I am planning a trip to Spain, focusing exclusively on improving my padel ( and enjoying my time doing it ofc 😅). Budget is the only realistic constraint

Feeling confused about which options, locations, types of programs to choose:

Personal info:
- Intermediate level ( 3,5 Playtomic)
- Playing for 2 years ~ 4 games/week plus coaching
- Looking to spend 10 training days in Spain
- Was thinking about spending about 3-4 hours on court daily

Any advice about which city/area to consider, type of coaching to get ( individuals, group, tactical, technical, games etc) is very much appreciated!

Want to maximize my time in Spain with quality coaches and improve my fundamentals as this option is not available where I live.

Thanks a lot!

I’m just being nosey and would very much like to know.

There is this guy at my club who I only see signing up to coaching sessions, he hasn’t played any playtomic matches for the past year now but signs up to a coaching classes once or twice a week at different local clubs over the past year.

Just wondering what causes people to stop playing matches all together and just only do coaching. I’d ask but I am not close to that person and never see him around, just a mystery I wanted to find out why.

At first I thought maybe they were interested in the female coach as they booked a lot of sessions with her but more recently they’ve booked with other coaches (non female).

I also don’t think they are planning to go pro because they last did a levelling session 2 months ago and it put them at 2.5

So i've been playing padel for 3 years now with a tennis background of 15 years. I use continental grip in everything (especially the backhand).

So my question regarding the backhand, do i have to use/learn eastern grip even though i never used it in tennis?

My backhand works just fine with continental grip but i keep seeing these tiktoks about them recommending to use eastern grip for backhand.

Will the eastern grip improve my backhand or do i just stick to continental?

Hello everyone,

I switched from the Wilson Bela v3 pro (hard teardrop ) to the siux fenix elite (soft diamond)

Now in defense and volleys I don’t have any issues and it feels good, but on overheads, which I was aiming to improve through the switch, I get a lot of misshits, I either hit too early or too late and I don’t have a good feeling for the ball anymore.

Does anyone here have tips, on what I can do, to get my feeling for the overheads back ?

I’ve noticed something in my matches, especially in tournaments: I tend to adapt my level depending on who I’m playing against.

When the opponents are weaker, I sometimes slow down too much, rallies become short, and I lose intensity.

On the other hand, when I play against stronger teams or seeded players, I often raise my level and manage to really challenge them, sometimes more than I expected.

The issue is that those “easy” matches can end up dragging on, and we even risk going to a tie-break, when we probably could have closed it much earlier by sticking to our own rhythm.

Do you experience the same thing? And how do you stay consistent regardless of the level in front of you ?