Easter is a rare gift. Four days off in a row, people who are usually impossible to coordinate all free at roughly the same time, and the kind of weather that makes you want to be outside – or at least indoors somewhere that feels a bit like outside. Padel is purpose-built for exactly this situation.
The catch is that you are not the only person who has had this thought.
Book now, not tomorrow
Easter is the busiest padel weekend of the first half of the year. Courts that sit half-empty on a Tuesday morning in February will be full by the Wednesday before Good Friday. If you’re planning to play over Easter and you haven’t booked yet, you’re already slightly behind.
On Playtomic, the prime weekend slots – Saturday morning, Good Friday afternoon, Easter Monday – tend to go ten days to two weeks out. The closer you get to the holiday, the more you’re picking through what’s left: the 7am slot no one wants, or the 3pm Sunday slot that theoretically works but will run into dinner.
If your club has a WhatsApp group, use it now. “Anyone want to organise something over Easter?” posted today will get you a group of four by the end of the week. If you wait until the Thursday before Good Friday, you’ll find that everyone either already has plans or assumed someone else was sorting it.
The clubs that are most likely to have slots available over Easter are smaller independents and leisure-centre courts – not because they’re worse, but because fewer people remember they exist. It’s worth checking Playtomic beyond your usual venues.
Four days is enough for everyone
The underrated thing about a four-day weekend is that it accommodates the people who are usually never free at the same time. The friend who works Saturdays. The one who does the Sunday morning park run. The couple who always have family commitments. Over Easter, at least some of those constraints lift.
This is the window to play with people you haven’t managed to get on court with in months. If you’ve been meaning to try Playtomic’s Open Matches feature but haven’t got around to it, here’s how to find people to play with – including exactly how Open Matches works in practice. Not in a sentimental way – just practically: the diary alignment that’s normally impossible occasionally becomes possible over a bank holiday weekend. Worth messaging people you’ve been meaning to organise a session with. The worst they can say is no.
Organising a round-robin for a bigger group
If you end up with more than four people – six or eight is common when you’ve sent a few messages and people have said yes – a round-robin works well and keeps everyone involved.
The simplest format for six players: three pairs, each pair plays each other once (three rounds, one court, about 45 minutes). Score it 10-point sets or just games – whatever’s clearest. Pair up randomly at the start by drawing names; it mixes the group up and stops it feeling like the same four people playing while two others watch.
For eight players across two courts: four pairs in a round-robin, each pair plays the others once. Four rounds, about 90 minutes. Done.
A few things that make it smoother:
Appoint one person as the organiser. Someone has to track scores, call time on sets, and shuffle players between courts. Shared responsibility for logistics means it falls through the gaps.
Rotating partners keeps it social. Instead of fixed pairs, rotate so everyone plays with everyone at some point. People who’ve just met tend to gel faster when they’re on the same side.
Odd numbers are fine. With five or seven players, one person sits out per round and cycles back in. Pre-plan who sits when so nobody ends up on the bench twice in a row.
Decide the scoring format before you start, write it in the WhatsApp group, and stick to it. The argument about whether it’s first-to-six or first-to-ten is never worth having.
Open play sessions
Some clubs run extra open-play sessions over Easter specifically to fill courts and bring in new players. It’s worth checking club websites and Playtomic for “open play” or “social padel” sessions around the bank holidays – you might find a paid session that’s essentially a ready-made social, where you turn up, get matched with other players, and play for an hour without having to organise a thing.
Open play is also a useful option if your group falls through at the last minute. Better to turn up to a club session and meet new people than to cancel entirely.
Why padel specifically
There’s a pull towards physical activity at Easter that doesn’t quite exist at other bank holidays. Longer days, spring tentatively arriving, four days off making you feel like you should do something with your body.
Padel scratches that itch without demanding much. You can show up having barely picked up a racket since Christmas and still have a good session. The format – small court, short rallies, team of two – is forgiving in ways that tennis isn’t.
It also handles British spring weather better than most alternatives. If Easter brings the usual mix of sunshine and horizontal rain, covered or all-weather padel courts remain playable when the golf course is waterlogged and the park run gets miserable. The sport doesn’t care about the forecast. That’s the point.
The short version
Book now. Message the people you’ve been trying to organise a session with. If you’re getting a bigger group together, plan the format in advance and appoint someone to run the day. And if your usual club is fully booked, look further – there’s a decent chance a smaller venue nearby has slots.
Easter is one of the two or three windows each year when padel stops being hard to schedule. That’s the point. Use it. If you want to make the trip itself the occasion – a venue worth travelling to rather than just your nearest club – the padel road trip guide covers six venues across the country that are worth the journey.