If you’ve heard people talking about padel lately, you’re not imagining it.
What started as a backyard experiment by Enrique Corcuera in Acapulco in the late 1960s spread through Spain and Argentina before rapidly landing in the UK.
And with that growth comes a question we hear constantly: what’s the difference between padel and tennis?
They share a net, a similar-looking ball, and the same 15-30-40 scoring system, so it’s natural to assume they’re more or less the same game.
They’re not.
Once you step on court, the two sports feel completely different in ways that go well beyond the obvious, and understanding those differences will help you decide which one deserves your time.
Take it from our padel and pickleball experts at The Court, this is everything you need to know.
How the court changes everything
The single biggest difference between padel and tennis is the court itself, because it shapes every other aspect of how the game plays.
A padel court measures 20 metres long by 10 metres wide, with a sand-dressed artificial turf surface underfoot.
A tennis doubles court is 23.77 metres long by 10.97 metres wide. So padel is smaller, but not dramatically so.
The real difference is what surrounds it.
A padel court is enclosed on all sides by glass walls and metal mesh fencing, typically 3 metres of glass at the back with mesh rising to 4 metres, and a combination of glass panels and mesh along the sides.
In tennis, the court is open. Hit the ball past the baseline or beyond the tramlines, and the point is over.
In padel, the ball bounces off the walls and stays in play.
That single rule transforms the entire sport.
Rallies last longer because the ball rarely goes out.
Angles matter more than power, because a perfectly placed lob that dies in the corner is more effective than a blistering shot that bounces straight off the back glass and sets up your opponent for an easy return.
You find yourself thinking two or three shots ahead, reading where the ball will go after it hits the wall, and positioning yourself to take advantage of rebounds your opponent doesn’t expect.
In tennis, the player who hits hardest and most accurately tends to win.
Padel is the opposite: the pair who think fastest and move smartest come out on top.
The net height is slightly different too, though you probably won’t notice it in practice.
A padel net sits at 88cm in the centre and rises to 92cm at the posts. A tennis net is 91.4cm at the centre and 107cm at the posts.
The padel net is marginally lower, which encourages more volleying at the net and makes the front of the court a powerful position to hold.
The equipment is different in your hand
Pick up a padel racket and a tennis racket side by side, and you’ll immediately feel the difference.
A tennis racket is long, light relative to its size, and strung with tension that lets you generate spin and power across a large hitting area.
A padel racket (technically called a pala) is shorter, chunkier, and has no strings at all.
It’s a solid face made from composite materials like carbon fibre or fibreglass, with a foam core and a surface covered in small perforated holes.
Most weigh between 340 and 390 grams, and the maximum length allowed is 45.5cm.
What does that mean when you play? It means padel is less about generating power and more about control and placement.
The solid face gives you a consistent, predictable contact with the ball that’s easier for beginners to get to grips. Compared to the string bed of a tennis racket, where timing and technique on your forehand and backhand make a much bigger difference to the quality of your shot.
You won’t be firing aces or hitting topspin winners from the baseline, but you’ll be able to keep rallies going from your very first game.
The ball looks almost identical, but there’s a difference there too.
Padel balls have lower internal pressure than tennis balls, which means they bounce lower and travel more slowly through the air.
That lower bounce is deliberate because it makes wall play manageable and keeps the ball in the hitting zone for longer.
If padel used full-pressure tennis balls, the game would be chaotic, with the ball pinging off the glass at unpredictable speeds and heights. T
he slightly softer ball keeps things controlled and rewards touch over brute force.
Serving: two completely different philosophies
In tennis, the serve is a weapon.
Top players can hit first serves at over 200 kilometres per hour, and even at a recreational level, a good serve can win free points or push your opponent onto the back foot before the rally starts.
The serve in tennis is overhead, you throw the ball up and hit it at the highest point you can reach, and developing a reliable serve takes months of practice.
Padel takes the opposite approach.
The serve must be underarm, struck at or below waist height, and the ball must bounce on the ground before you hit it.
There’s no towering overhead motion, no massive first-serve advantage, and no need to spend weeks learning a technique before you can start a point properly. Everyone, from your first session to your hundredth, starts the point on roughly equal terms.
That doesn’t mean the padel serve is pointless, far from it.
A well-placed serve that kicks off the side wall or dies short in the service box puts real pressure on the receiving pair, but it’s about accuracy and disguise rather than raw speed.
Where tennis hands a massive advantage to anyone who can bomb a first serve, padel puts the emphasis on placement and a bit of guile.
Which one is easier to pick up?
This is probably the question we get asked more than any other. The honest answer is that padel is typically easier for beginners to enjoy from day one.
The combination of a smaller court, an enclosed space that keeps the ball in play, a solid racket that’s forgiving on off-centre hits, and an underarm serve that anyone can manage means that most people can rally within their first 30 minutes on a padel court.
That’s not an exaggeration.
We see it happen every week at The Court.
People who have never held a racket of any kind walk on court, get the basics, and are laughing their way through proper rallies before their hour is up.
Tennis has a steeper learning curve.
The open court punishes mistakes more harshly because every wayward shot ends the point.
The strung racket requires better timing and technique to produce consistent shots. The overhead serve takes dedicated practice to become reliable.
None of this makes tennis a bad sport (it’s a brilliant one), but it does mean that the payoff takes longer to arrive.
Many adult beginners find themselves spending their first few tennis sessions picking balls up off the floor rather than playing actual rallies, and that can be discouraging when all you wanted was a fun way to stay active.
Fitness and physical demands
Both sports give you a solid workout.
Where they differ is in how your body moves.
Tennis involves longer sprints, wider lateral movement across a bigger court, and more explosive changes of direction.
The physical load is spread across fewer rallies that tend to be shorter but more intense.
Padel, because the court is smaller and the walls keep rallies alive, involves more sustained movement at a moderate intensity.
You’re constantly repositioning, shuffling forward and back, reading the ball off the glass, and adjusting your position in relation to your partner.
Rallies are longer and more frequent, so you spend more time actually playing and less time waiting.
For people who haven’t played sport regularly, padel tends to be gentler on the joints.
There’s less sudden stopping and starting, and the shorter distances mean fewer high-impact sprints.
That’s not to say you won’t feel it the next day, especially in your calves and shoulders, but the injury profile for padel is generally more forgiving than tennis, particularly for knees and ankles.
If you’re coming back to sport after a break, or you want something active that won’t wreck your body, padel is a fantastic option.
Why padel is a social sport
Tennis can be played as singles or doubles. Padel, according to the International Padel Federation (FIP) rules, is always doubles. Always.
That might sound like a small detail, but it changes the entire atmosphere of the game.
Padel is inherently social because you need four people to play, and the communication between you and your partner is a constant part of every point.
You’re calling shots, covering each other, celebrating together, commiserating together, and building a rhythm as a pair that feels different from anything in singles tennis.
The smaller court means you’re physically closer to everyone, including your opponents, and conversations happen naturally between points.
There’s a sociable, communal energy to padel that you don’t always get in tennis, where the distance across the net and the format of the game can feel more isolated, especially in singles.
At The Court, we see this social side play out every day.
People come for the padel, stay for the bar and restaurant, and leave having met people they wouldn’t have crossed paths with otherwise.
It’s a sport that lends itself to post-match drinks and conversation in a way that running on a treadmill or doing a solo gym session simply doesn’t.
So which should you try?
Both are great sports, genuinely.
Tennis is a brilliant game with decades of tradition, serious athleticism at the highest level, and a depth of skill that rewards years of dedication.
If you’re drawn to individual competition, enjoy the process of developing a technique over time, and want a sport with a clear pathway from beginner to competitive player, tennis has a lot to offer.
But there’s a reason padel is growing so fast as a sport.
You can enjoy it from your very first session, it is social by nature, it rewards brain over power, and it gives a great work out.
Padel is addictive.
People try it once and book again the same week.
Fancy giving it a go? Come and join us at The Court
If you’re in Glasgow and want to give padel or pickleball a go, we have four panoramic indoor courts at The Court on Drakemire Drive on Glasgow’s south side.
You don’t need a membership to book, you don’t need your own equipment (we hire out rackets), and you don’t need any experience.
Book a court through Playtomic, turn up, and we’ll handle the rest.
There’s a good chance you’ll end up in the bar afterwards telling someone about this game you’ve just discovered, because that’s what tends to happen.
Frequently asked questions
Is padel just tennis with walls?
Not really. While they share the 15-30-40 scoring and best-of-three sets format, padel has its own equipment, its own court, its own serve rules, and a completely different tactical approach. Padel also uses the golden point at deuce in most competitions, where the next point wins the game outright instead of playing advantage. The walls make it a different sport, not a modified version of tennis.
Can I play padel if I’ve never played tennis?
Absolutely. In fact, complete beginners often pick padel up faster than experienced tennis players because they don’t have to unlearn habits that work in tennis but hinder you in padel. The solid racket and enclosed court make it accessible from day one.
Can you play padel as singles?
Technically some courts allow singles play, but padel is designed for doubles and almost always played as a foursome. The court dimensions and wall positions are built around four players, and playing singles on a padel court feels like playing football on a rugby pitch.
