During friendly matches and most amateur tournaments padel matches are played without an umpire. The qualifying rounds of World Padel Tour don’t have a referee either. This means that the players will have to judge certain things themselves in an amicable manner. Let’s talk about some of these things to keep an eye out for and how to behave.

If one of the players hits a shot whereby the ball hits another player, it is usual to apologize, while the person who got hit will acknowledge, knowing it’s part of the game.

At the start of the match it is usual to wish the other players a good match, and at the end all players are expected to approach the net and shake hands amicably, with both sides congratulating the others and thanking them for the match.

1. Each player is responsible for all decisions in her half of the Court. She should be completely honest on all “calls” but, if in doubt, she should give her opponent the benefit of the doubt and play the ball as good. You should not play a let.
2. It is your obligation to call all balls on your side, to help your opponent make calls when the opponent requests it, and to call against yourself (with the exception of a first service) any ball that you clearly see out on your opponent’s side of the net.
3. Any “out”, “let” or “fault” call must be made immediately (ie. made before either an opponent has hit the return or the return has gone out of play); otherwise the ball continues in play. “Calls” must be verbal and clearly audible to the opponent, followed by a signal if necessary. “Lets” may be called by any of the participating players.
4. On all court surfaces except clay (see (g) below) if a player incorrectly calls a ball “out” and then realises that the ball was good, the point should be replayed on the first occasion (involuntary hindrance) and the point lost on each subsequent occasion (deliberate hindrance). In the case of a point winning shot, a let would not be played.
5. When returning service, the partner of the receiver should generally call the service line for her. The receiver should generally call the centre and side service lines.
6. If players cannot agree on the score, they should calmly discuss the points/ games that are the areas of disagreement. If they cannot reach agreement they should replay only the points or games in question. All points or games which the players agree on stand eg. Two players cannot agree on whether the score is 40-15 or 30-30, but agree on the winner of the first, second and fourth points. Therefore only the third point needs to be replayed.
7. Players are prohibited from checking the mark of the ball on their opponent’s side of the Court, unless invited by their opponent to do so. Ball mark inspections are only permitted on clay courts. On clay courts if a player incorrectly calls a ball “out” and then realises that the ball was good, the player who called “out” loses the point.
8. Where a ball interrupts play, either by rolling/bouncing onto the court, and/or creating a visible interruption behind the court, a let should be played.
9. If a player hinders her opponent it can be ruled involuntary or deliberate.
10. When a player has created an involuntary hindrance (ball failing out of pocket, hat failing off, etc.) the first time a let should be called and the player should be told that any such hindrance thereafter will be ruled deliberate.
11. Any hindrance caused by a player that is ruled deliberate will result in the loss of a point.

If there are any situations that you’re unsure about, let me know and I’ll do my best to clear any doubts.

Your hips are essential for proper padel form, so we need to make sure they’re both strong and have excellent mobility.

Here’s a video introducing the concept of hip rotation mobility and an assessment to see where you’re at. Whenever you attempt to improve something in your body, always start with a good assessment followed by thinking about your objectives, then implementing daily habits in order to reach your goals.

Here’s some padel and tennis specific hip work:

Here is another post about hip stretching, with very helpful photos of each exercise:

https://www.self.com/gallery/hip-stretches-your-body-really-needs-slideshow

 

Most padel players at any level enjoy watching World Padel Tour matches and dream of imitating the moves of their favorite padel players. However this might not be the most effective way of spending your time if you’re an amateur player and are trying to win more matches.

What does being an amateur player really mean? It just means what you play below pro level—you may do some aspects quite well, but you still muck things up that a professional never would. It might be that the way you move is not the most efficient, and you tire yourself out halfway through the match, or that you simply lack certain shots in your repertoire, or even having a less developed sense of anticipation.

There’s a huge upside to being an amateur, however. One thing that is crucial to know is that the pros aren’t simply better than amateurs, but that they win their matches in a completely different way.

When pros play, matches are decided mostly by a slight edge one player has over the other—in speed, awareness, or some other highly-trained quality. Their rallies go back and forth, all players knowing where they need to be, until one player puts hits a shot that forces a mistake on the other end. Pro players have all the fundamental elements mastered, and they win by being slightly better than their opponent at one or more of them.

When amateurs meet, they don’t edge each other out by being slightly more skillful. Instead, it’s a contest of who makes the fewest huge, gaping blunders. Amateurs constantly make egregious point- and game-losing mistakes, of the sort that pros no longer make. The outcome is decided by who makes the fewest—or least catastrophic—such mistakes.

And of course it works that way. Getting to the pros is a long, arduous process, one that filters out players with major flaws in their game. Coaches leap on those flaws as soon as they see them and drill them out of their athletes. Amateurs don’t go through this filtering process, so the flaws and bad habits remain, costing them bigtime every single time they play.

Everyone’s strategy, therefore, should be to identify and eliminate these big, costly rookie blunders, one by one. This is far more effective than getting quicker, hitting harder, or making that one brilliant shot now and then.

Just one of these blunders, made consistently, can undermine almost everything you’re doing right. Each is like a hole where your success leaks out. If the hole is big enough, or there are multiple holes, it’s hard to get anywhere beyond “struggling,” no matter how good you are at other parts of the game.

The good news: this also means that fixing even one such hole, or starting to, will make you immediately better, and not by just a little. What are your chronic amateur mistakes? Think about where you’ve been stagnant, and ask yourself what you do that the pros would never allow themselves to do.

What are the big holes in the tub? If you don’t know, any veteran can surely tell you.

So how do we win at padel? It’s the million dollar question, and perhaps one that tennis players especially ask when making the switch to this sport.

At first, for ex-tennis players, padel might seem like an easy sport since you get the impression that you don’t have to run a lot or hit powerful shots as you do in tennis. However, the fact that the ball remains in play much easier due to the walls can play havoc with newcomers to the sport. The natural instinct of most new players is to hit the ball hard to finish the point, however this is one of the worst ideas in padel.

The most important factor in playing padel is keeping the ball low.

It’s a sport that is decided by the number of mistakes one does more than the number of winners achieved. Thus, by keeping the ball low, we would be forcing our opponent into an uncomfortable return, increasing the chances that he will make a mistake or hit a high ball that would be easy for us to put away.

The video of the practice match below is shot at a very good angle that allows us to see how low the ball actually travels when the pros are playing. Although they make it look easy, return balls that are that low, at that speed and with that degree of underspin is extremely hard, unless of course you’re a pro player like them.

So there you have it, the most important factor in winning at padel is to keep the ball low and of course try to make as little mistakes as possible. In other words, try to use your head more than your physique, and the results will follow.