Six months in, you’ve started to feel it. Your beginner racket – the round one you bought for £75 after reading a buying guide – isn’t quite doing what you want it to do. The ball isn’t going where you’re aiming it on that forehand volley. Your smashes feel a bit flat. You watched someone at your club play with a sleek-looking teardrop and wondered.

So: is it the racket? Or is it you?

Honest answer: it’s probably you. But that’s not the full story, and it doesn’t mean upgrading is pointless. It means the timing matters.

What changes between price brackets

A beginner racket and an intermediate racket are more similar than the marketing suggests. They both have a foam core. They both hit a ball. The differences are real, but they’re subtle – and they require a certain level of play to feel them.

Here’s what you’re paying for as you move up:

Foam core density and type. Most beginner rackets use soft EVA foam or polyethylene foam. Both are forgiving – they absorb the hit, which makes it easier to control where the ball goes, but they don’t give you much information back. The ball leaves the racket without a great deal of feel. Intermediate rackets often use medium-density EVA, which is firmer. The ball bounces off faster and with more precision – but it demands cleaner contact. If you’re still mis-hitting regularly, harder foam punishes you. If your contact is becoming consistent, you’ll notice the improvement in both power and response.

Surface texture. Many beginner rackets have a smooth or lightly finished face. More expensive rackets often have a rougher, sandpaper-like grit surface, which adds spin to the ball. This does add real benefit – spin adds control on groundstrokes and makes your lob less hittable – but it’s only useful if you’re generating enough swing to impart spin. Below a certain level of play, you won’t notice the difference.

Frame stiffness. Cheaper frames flex more on impact; stiffer frames give more energy transfer and feedback. This is part of what makes higher-end rackets feel more “alive” at the sweet spot. It’s also part of what makes them less forgiving on mishits.

Balance point. This is where the interesting differences live and where most of the feel difference lies, which brings us to the shape question.

Round vs teardrop: the club player’s dilemma

The guide to your first racket told you to buy a round one. That was correct. Now you’re wondering about teardrop.

Here’s what the shapes mean. A round racket has its balance point near the centre of the frame – the sweet spot is wide and forgiving, and the racket handles roughly equally in both directions. A teardrop has its balance point slightly higher – closer to the top of the frame – which pushes the sweet spot up and gives more power on overheads, while keeping a wider hitting surface than a diamond.

A diamond racket is for advanced players who generate their own power and need the racket to amplify it. Ignore those for now.

The teardrop is the right shape for most club players at the 6-24 month mark. Not because it’s dramatically different from a round racket, but because it’s a natural progression: the sweet spot is still reasonable for someone still developing consistency, and the extra power on smashes and overheads is something you’ll notice. What you won’t get is quite the same forgiveness on off-centre hits.

The honest test: are you hitting the ball cleanly most of the time? If your contact point is still inconsistent, stay round. If you’re hitting the centre of the face reliably and starting to think about shot placement rather than just getting the ball back, a teardrop will reward you.

When to upgrade

Most players upgrade too early. The urge kicks in around the three-month mark, when you’ve played enough to know you’re serious about the sport but not enough to really feel the performance ceiling of a good beginner racket.

A £75 round EVA soft racket will carry you through twelve months of twice-weekly play without ever being the limiting factor. Your technique is the limiting factor. The racket is not the reason your lob is going into the back wall.

That said, there are legitimate reasons to upgrade earlier:

  • Your beginner racket has broken or worn out (this happens)
  • You’re playing four or more times a week and want something more durable and precise
  • You’ve tried an intermediate racket during a clinic or borrowed one from a clubmate and felt a clear difference in your game

The last point matters. Trying before buying isn’t just good practice – it’s the only real way to know if you’re ready for a particular racket. Most clubs have demo rackets; some retailers will let you trial a frame. Use that. The people who upgrade successfully are almost always the ones who played with the new racket first.

Budget brackets: what you’re getting

Under £100

There are good rackets here. The Adidas RX series sits in this range and consistently earns strong reviews for value. Head and Babolat both have solid options under £100. At this price, you’re getting a proper intermediate build – medium foam, decent surface, reliable construction – without paying the premium for branding or top-end materials.

This is where most club players should be buying, especially for a first upgrade. If it doesn’t work out, the financial hit is manageable.

£100–£180

This is the most populated bracket and the one with the most noise. There are excellent rackets here – the Bullpadel Hack, various Nox mid-range models, Head’s Delta range – and there are also a lot of rackets that are essentially the same as the £80 version with a different paint job and a more expensive logo.

What you do get at the top of this range: slightly better frame materials (often more carbon fibre in the layup), improved balance, better grip quality, and longer durability. What you may not get: any noticeable performance uplift over a well-chosen sub-£100 option.

The right question in this bracket isn’t “what’s the best racket at £150?” but “why am I spending £150 rather than £90?” If you can’t answer that with something specific – frame stiffness, a particular shape, a recommendation from someone who’s seen you play – you might just be paying for the marketing.

£180 and above

At this point you’re buying professional-grade materials, usually full carbon fibre frames, premium foam formulations, and rackets designed to complement developed technique. They’re excellent rackets. They are also largely wasted on anyone who doesn’t play competitively or at a consistently high club level.

There’s nothing wrong with buying one if you’re committed to the sport and want the best equipment. Just know that the performance gap between a £130 racket and a £220 racket is much smaller than the price gap suggests – and the gap between a £90 racket and a £130 one is often smaller still.

The actual advice

Buy the upgrade when you’re playing at least twice a week and have been doing so for six months or more. Start with a teardrop shape in the medium-EVA range, £80–£130. Try it before you buy it if at all possible. Ignore anything marketed as a “power” racket unless your coach has specifically told you your swing generates enough pace to benefit from it.

Don’t buy the most expensive thing in the shop. Don’t buy the cheapest thing either – at under £50, you’re back into inconsistent build quality territory. The middle of the market, from brands with actual padel pedigree (Bullpadel, Nox, Head, Babolat, Wilson), is where good equipment lives.

And keep your beginner racket. Whichever racket you’re playing with, a fresh overgrip is the cheapest upgrade that has the most immediate impact on feel. It makes an excellent spare, and it’s the benchmark against which you’ll know whether the upgrade was worth it. Upgrading also often coincides with finding a more serious club – how to choose a padel club is worth reading if you’re ready to move beyond casual pay-and-play.