You’ve decided to try padel. Maybe you’ve heard enough from a friend who won’t stop talking about it, maybe you spotted courts at your club, maybe you just want to see what the fuss is about. Whatever the reason, you’re arriving with a background that will help you more than it hinders you.
That said, some of what tennis has taught you will actively work against you in padel. Knowing what to carry forward and what to leave behind makes the first month considerably less frustrating – and considerably more fun.
What transfers immediately
Tennis players tend to underestimate how much they bring to padel. These things carry over from the first session:
Court sense. You already understand positioning, angles, and depth. You know what a short ball means, why net position matters, and when you’re in trouble. This is hard-won spatial awareness that beginner padel players spend weeks developing. You start with it.
Volley technique. Padel is a net-dominant sport. Points are usually won and lost at the net, and the volley is the central stroke. Tennis players typically arrive with functional volleying instincts – compact swing, forward weight, decent footwork. The grip adjustments (more continental, shorter take-back) are minor tuning on a base that’s already there. Our guide to padel volleys covers the specifics if you want to read ahead.
Fitness and movement patterns. The padel court is smaller – 20×10m compared to the 23.77×10.97m of a tennis doubles court – and the game is almost always played as doubles. Your tennis conditioning is more than adequate. You’ll need to adapt to shorter, more explosive lateral bursts, but you won’t be gasping after set one.
Reading the game. Pattern recognition from tennis crosses over. You’ll read the pace of incoming balls, anticipate opponent positioning, and understand why a ball placed low to the glass is a better shot than a ball hit hard down the line. The tactical instincts aren’t identical, but they’re adjacent enough to be useful.
What you’ll need to unlearn
This is where it gets interesting – and where tennis backgrounds can work against you if you’re not paying attention.
The power instinct. In tennis, hitting harder usually hurts your opponent. In padel, a hard flat ball that bounces and carries into the back glass comes back as a problem for you, not them. The glass wall absorbs pace and spits the ball back into play, which means your opponent can use your power against you if you can’t get to the rebound. Padel rewards patience, placement, and angle over pace. Players who fight this adjustment spend months losing points they should win.
Treating the walls as the end of the rally. Tennis players instinctively treat the back wall as a boundary – the ball hits the glass and the point is over. In padel, the point isn’t over. A ball that bounces and then comes off the back glass is live, and letting it through and playing it off the rebound is one of the most important defensive skills in the game. The shift from “I’ve been beaten” to “I can still play this ball” is the central mental adjustment padel demands of tennis players. Learning how to play off the back wall properly is worth prioritising early.
The serve. In padel, the serve is underarm: let the ball bounce, strike it at or below waist height, diagonally into the service box. It is deliberately a low-stakes shot – a way to start the point, not a weapon. Tennis players find this frustrating because they’ve spent years developing a serve as an offensive tool. In padel, the pressure starts after the serve. A guide to padel serve technique covers the mechanics if you want to drill it properly.
Overhead instincts. When a short overhead arrives in padel, the tennis impulse is to smash it as hard as possible. The right shot is almost always a bandeja – a controlled slice overhead that pushes opponents to the back glass and keeps you at the net. Going for the full smash usually loses you the net position. This is the shot that separates players who hold the net from players who keep giving it back.
Charging the net prematurely. In tennis, closing the net after a strong groundstroke is often correct. In padel, rushing to the net without a plan leaves you exposed: opponents can absorb pressure with the back glass and float a lob over you. Net position in padel requires coordination with your partner and a clearer read of when you’ve earned the forward position.
Common mistakes in the first few sessions
Tennis players tend to make the same errors when starting out. Knowing them in advance doesn’t eliminate them, but it cuts the time you spend on each.
Hitting everything flat and hard. Related to the power instinct above, but specifically: the flat drive that works in tennis is the worst shot in padel against the back glass. Learning to add slice and height early changes the risk profile of your hitting dramatically.
Ignoring your partner’s position. Tennis is largely solo decision-making; padel is a constant negotiation with your partner. Positioning, communication between points, who takes which ball in the middle – these are new habits. The pairs who cover each other instinctively beat the pairs who play as two individuals sharing a court.
Using a grip that’s too closed. Tennis players often grip slightly more towards semi-western or western for groundstrokes. In padel, a more continental grip across all shots (closer to what you’d use for a tennis volley) gives you more flexibility for the wall play, blocks, and angles that padel requires. Changing grip mid-session is hard – better to adjust from the start.
How long until it clicks
The honest answer is: most tennis players feel oriented by their third or fourth session. The mechanics are familiar enough that you’ll be rallying from session one. But “feeling oriented” and “playing well” are different.
Wall play takes longer. Most tennis players spend the first month fighting the glass, not using it. The first time the wall saves you a rally – you let the ball through, played it off the back glass under control, reset the point – something shifts. That usually happens between week three and week six, depending on how often you play.
The guide to your first month of padel covers what to focus on week by week if you want a structured approach.
Tips for the first month
A few practical points for tennis players starting out:
Play social sessions, not competitive matches. Most UK clubs run Americano socials where partners rotate – you’ll play with and against a range of levels, get a high volume of balls, and pick up good habits from watching better players. Jumping into competitive play too early when you’re still fighting bad habits is slower development than social play.
Find a coach for one session early. One session with a padel-specific coach in your first two to three weeks is worth considerably more than two months of self-correction. A coach can identify the specific tennis habits that are hurting your game and give you one or two things to focus on. Most UK venues offer beginner sessions.
Watch the net game, not the back-court game. In padel, points are won and lost at the net. When you’re watching better players, spend more time studying their net positioning, how they time the bandeja, and how they communicate with their partner. That’s where your development will happen fastest.
Don’t be discouraged by how good experienced players are at the glass. Players with two or three years of padel have developed wall instincts that take time to build. This is the one part of the game where a complete beginner with no tennis background sometimes has an advantage over you in the early months – they haven’t spent years treating walls as out-of-bounds. It evens out quickly.
Using your tennis network
One practical advantage for tennis players: most of your tennis friends are one persuasive conversation away from trying padel. The social and tactical comparisons between padel and tennis make padel an easy pitch to anyone who already enjoys racket sports. Padel is almost always played as doubles – you need four people. You almost certainly know four tennis players who’d be up for it.
Squash players in your network are worth inviting too – wall awareness is one thing they’ll bring that tennis players have to build from scratch. The padel vs squash guide breaks down what transfers for them.
The sport is growing fast. The LTA counted 1,825 padel courts across Britain in May 2026. Wherever you play tennis, there are almost certainly padel courts within range.