How to Get Better at Padel: 10 Habits That Turn Beginners Into Real Players

Padel is famously easy to start and quietly hard to master. Most people can rally within their first hour, which is a big reason it has become the fastest-growing sport in the country. According to the LTA there are now more than 860,000 players in Britain and over 1,000 courts, and both numbers are still climbing. The gap between "I can keep the ball in" and "I can actually win points" is where the fun really begins.

The good news is that improving at padel is less about raw athleticism than most newcomers expect. It is about a handful of habits: where you stand, when you attack, and which shot you choose under pressure. Fix those and you will beat players who hit the ball harder than you. Here are ten padel tips for beginners that will make the biggest difference to your game.

First, let your kit help you rather than fight you

Before the tactics, a quick word on gear, because the wrong equipment makes every habit below harder to build. If you are still swinging a heavy, head-heavy racket designed for advanced players, you are making life difficult for yourself. Beginners improve fastest with a racket built for control: a rounder shape, a lower balance and a softer core give you a bigger sweet spot and far more forgiveness on off-centre hits.

If you are not sure what suits you, our ultimate padel racket buying guide walks through shape, weight and balance in plain English. As a rule of thumb, a forgiving all-round racket or something from our beginner rackets range will do more for your progress than a pro's diamond-shaped weapon. Kit is not a shortcut, but the right racket lets your technique actually show up on court.

Ten habits that will level up your padel

1. Get to the net and hold it

Padel is won at the net, not the back wall. The attacking team stands close to the net, controls the point and forces errors; the defending team is stuck near the back glass, scrambling. As soon as your serve or return allows, move forward together and take up your position a metre or so behind the net. If you learn only one thing from this list, learn to value the net.

2. Use the lob far more than feels natural

The lob is the most underused shot in beginner padel. When your opponents are camped at the net, a good lob over their heads pushes them back, buys you time and lets your team move forward. You do not need power, just height and depth. Beginners who add a reliable lob suddenly find they are the ones dictating points.

3. Let the ball come off the glass

New players panic when the ball flies past them towards the back wall. Trust the glass. Turn, track the ball, let it rebound and play it as it comes back into court. Waiting that extra half-second feels strange at first, but the wall is your friend, and playing off it is one of the skills that makes padel feel different to tennis.

4. Play with your partner, not beside them

Padel is a doubles game, and the best pairs move as a unit. Picture an invisible rope tying you together: when your partner is pulled wide, you shift across to cover the middle; when they move forward, you go too. Two players drifting around independently leave huge gaps. Talk to each other, call the middle balls early and move as one.

5. When in doubt, aim down the middle

A ball hit down the centre between two opponents causes confusion, cuts down their angles and reduces your own margin for error. Beginners love going for the sideline winner and spraying it wide. Playing through the middle is less glamorous and wins far more points. Save the risky angles for when you are genuinely in control of the rally.

6. Sort out your footwork and your shoes

Almost every technical fault traces back to feet, not hands. Stay light, keep a low ready position with your knees bent and take small adjusting steps so you meet the ball in balance rather than reaching for it. Grippy, supportive footwear makes this possible on padel's sandy artificial turf, so a proper pair of padel shoes is a genuinely worthwhile upgrade. If you are weighing up the options, our padel shoe buying guide explains what to look for in grip and support.

7. Choose placement over power

Padel is not tennis, and swinging for the fences usually just gifts the point back. The court is small, the walls keep the ball alive and controlled placement beats brute force almost every time. Aim to hit the ball where your opponents are not, at a pace you can actually control. Consistency is a weapon: the player who makes one fewer mistake per rally wins a surprising number of matches.

8. Learn the bandeja to hold your position

When opponents lob you at the net, the instinct is to smash. The smarter shot is often the bandeja, a controlled overhead played with slice that keeps the ball deep and lets you stay forward rather than retreating. It is the single most useful intermediate shot to learn, and it is what stops a good lob from immediately costing you your net position. Prioritise control over a spectacular but risky smash.

9. Play regularly and warm up properly

Padel technique is built through repetition, not one big breakthrough. An hour twice a week will improve you faster than an occasional three-hour marathon. Warm up your shoulders and wrists first, because the flicky, wristy motions of padel catch out players who arrive cold. Little and often is the pattern that turns beginners into steady intermediates.

10. Watch better players and steal their decisions

You learn as much from watching as from hitting. Whether it is the pair on the next court or the professionals on the Premier Padel tour, pay attention to their choices rather than their power: when they lob, when they hold at the net, how they move together. Good decisions are contagious once you start noticing them.

How to get better at padel, faster

If you want to speed all of this up, be deliberate about practice. Pick one habit per session and focus only on that, whether it is getting to the net or using the lob, rather than trying to fix everything at once. And consider the occasional coached session, because a good coach will spot the one footwork or grip issue that has been quietly holding you back.

Most importantly, keep it fun. Padel is social by design, and the players who improve fastest are usually the ones enjoying themselves enough to keep turning up. Progress here is not about hitting harder; it is about standing in the right place, choosing the right shot and playing with your partner.

The bottom line

Getting better at padel comes down to habits, not heroics: take the net, lob more, use the glass, move with your partner, favour the middle and let placement do the work that power cannot. Sort your footwork, play with kit that suits your level and turn up regularly, and the improvement takes care of itself. None of it requires natural talent, just a little patience and the willingness to do the simple things well.