Padel Rules, Explained Simply

You can learn the padel rules in the time it takes to lose the first game. The sport was built that way: easy to start, hard to leave. The scoring borrows from tennis, the serve goes underarm, and the glass walls around the court are not the edge of play but part of it. Here is the whole game, in plain order, before your first set on the Bukit.

The short version: Padel is played as doubles on a 20 by 10 metre enclosed court. Scoring follows tennis (15, 30, 40, game, best of three sets). The serve is underarm and cross-court, and the surrounding glass walls are in play once the ball has bounced on the floor. Easy to learn, hard to master.

What are the rules of padel?

Padel is a doubles racquet sport played on an enclosed court roughly a third the size of a tennis court, with glass and mesh walls that stay in play. You serve underarm, score exactly as you would in tennis, and use the walls to keep the ball alive. The court measures 20 metres by 10 metres, the net sits at 0.88 metres in the middle, and almost every match is four players, two a side.

The rest is detail, and the detail is where the game gets good. Below: scoring, the serve, the walls, and the one change the professional game made for 2026.

How do you score in padel?

Padel scoring is identical to tennis. You win points as 15, 30, 40, then game. Win six games (by two) and you take the set, and the first pair to two sets wins the match. At 6 games all, a set is decided by a tiebreak to seven points. If you can keep score in tennis, you can keep score in padel.

The only wrinkle is what happens at 40 all, which is called deuce.

In friendly and club play, deuce is usually played the traditional way: you must win two points in a row to take the game. Professional padel has moved on, and that is the part worth knowing for 2026.

How does the serve work in padel?

The serve is underarm, and that single rule is why padel is so quick to pick up. You stand behind the service line, bounce the ball once on the floor, and strike it at or below waist height, sending it diagonally into the opponent's service box across the net. There is no toss, no overhead motion, no power serve.

A few specifics decide whether a serve is good:

1. Bounce first. Let the ball bounce once on the ground behind the service line before you hit it.
2. Below the waist. Contact must be at or under waist height, with at least one foot on the ground.
3. Serve cross-court. The ball must land in the service box diagonally opposite you.
4. You get two serves. As in tennis, a fault gives you a second serve. Two faults is a point for the other pair.
5. The let. If the serve clips the net and still lands in the correct box, you take it again.
6. The fence is a fault. A served ball that lands in the box but then touches the metal mesh before its second bounce is a fault. If it lands in and then touches the side glass, play continues.

How do the walls work in padel?

The walls are the heart of padel and the thing that surprises every newcomer. After the ball bounces once on the floor of your side, it can carry into the glass and rebound, and you are allowed to play it off the wall. The wall is your teammate on defence. A ball that has you beaten in tennis is, in padel, just a ball to read off the back glass.

Three rules keep it honest. The ball must bounce on the floor before it touches any wall on the receiving side, so a shot that strikes your opponent's glass directly, without bouncing first, is your point. On your own side you may use your walls freely once the ball has bounced. And the double bounce ends the point: let the ball bounce twice on your floor and you have lost it.

There is one more flourish. If a ball rebounds off your glass and flies back out over the side of the court, you are allowed to run through the gate and play it from outside the court, provided you return it back in. It rarely happens at club level. It looks wonderful when it does.

Padel rules in brief

The whole game, in eight lines:

1. Played as doubles, four players, on a 20 by 10 metre enclosed court.
2. Scoring is the same as tennis: 15, 30, 40, game, best of three sets.
3. Serve underarm, below the waist, after a bounce, diagonally cross-court.
4. You get two serves; a net-cord that lands in is a let.
5. The ball must bounce on the floor before it hits a wall on the receiving side.
6. Use your own walls freely once the ball has bounced on your floor.
7. Two bounces on your side, or a ball into the net, loses the point.
8. The walls are in play. Reading the rebound is most of the skill.

What changed in the 2026 padel rules?

The International Padel Federation issued a revised rulebook that took effect on 1 January 2026, agreed at its general meeting in Acapulco in late November 2025. The headline change is a new way to settle deuce in professional play, the Star Point.

Here is how it works. The first deuce is played normally, with advantage. If the game returns to deuce a second time, advantage is played again. On the third deuce, a single deciding point is played, the Star Point, and the receiving pair chooses which side to take it from. It sits between the traditional advantage, which can stretch a game for minutes, and the golden point, a sudden-death single point at the first deuce that the professional tour used in recent seasons. The 2026 rulebook also tightened the serve and added penalties for dropping the racket.

For most people reading this before a club match, none of it changes your afternoon. Recreational padel still plays advantage, or the quicker golden point if the group agrees beforehand. The Star Point is a tour rule for the spectacle. It is simply the version you will see when you watch the professionals.

Where to learn padel in Uluwatu

Reading the rules and feeling them are different things, and padel rewards the second far more than the first. At Azoria Padel Club, the game sits at the centre of the house, four players, a long rally, and a drink at the long table after. If this is your first racquet in hand, the Azoria Padel Academy takes you from your first underarm serve to your first real match, and our guide to padel for beginners in Uluwatu covers the rest.

Padel has arrived in Bali at speed. The island grew from a handful of courts in 2021 to one of the fastest-growing padel markets in the world, and the Bukit now has its own clay. For the wider picture, read our clifftop guide to the game, or, if you arrived from the other racquet, padel versus tennis.

Frequently asked questions

What are the basic rules of padel?
Padel is doubles on a 20 by 10 metre enclosed court. You serve underarm and cross-court after a bounce, score exactly as in tennis, and the glass walls are in play once the ball has bounced on the floor. Two bounces, or a ball into the net, loses the point.

Is padel scoring the same as tennis?
Almost identical. Padel uses 15, 30, 40, game, deuce and sets, with matches best of three. The professional game now settles a long deuce with a single Star Point from January 2026, but club play usually keeps traditional advantage.

How does the serve work in padel?
You bounce the ball, then strike it underarm at or below waist height, sending it diagonally into the opposite service box. No overhead serve, no jump. You get two serves, and a net-cord that lands in the right box is a let.

Can the ball hit the walls in padel?
Yes, that is the point of the game. After the ball bounces on the floor it can rebound off the glass and stay in play, and you can use the walls on your own side once it has bounced. A ball that hits a wall before bouncing on the floor, though, is a lost point for the side that let it.

Can you play padel as singles?
Padel is almost always doubles, four players on the court. A narrower singles court exists, but it is rare. The sport was designed around the doubles game and its social rhythm.

Court three opens at six. Read the rules tonight, forget half of them by your second game, and by the third you will be playing the walls like you always knew they were there.

Further reading

• International Padel Federation (FIP), the sport's governing body, with the official rulebook and the annual world report on padel's growth.
• Padel, an overview, a clear encyclopaedic primer on the court, the history and the rules.
• Padel scoring and serving rules, a plain-language reference for how a match is played and scored.