How do you score in Padel

For those of you familiar with tennis scoring, Padel scoring is exactly the same. If you’re not – don’t worry! This scoring system is a bit strange so we can go through it together.

It starts off with what is known as a ‘game’. Now, this isn’t the same thing as a whole match, as we shall see. During the course of a game, one player serves. Essentially, if you win a rally, you score a point, and the first pair to 4 points wins. Only, instead of going 1-0, 2-0, 3-0, game, for some reason it goes 15-0, 30-0, 40-0, game. Weird right? 

After that game, one of the opposing pair serves, then when the serve returns to the original pair, whoever hasn’t served yet serves, and so on in that order. To win a set – which is the next biggest thing – you have to win six games but ‘two clear games’. That means that if my partner and I got to six games but our opponents had five, we would have to win another game. 

If, however, you reach 6-6, you have to play a ‘tiebreak’. This is where you play first to seven. Again, you have to win by two clear points, and you just keep playing until someone does. In a tiebreak, the serving follows the same pattern as before, but each player gets only two serves – except the very first person to serve who gets one to start with but two each subsequent time. Whoever wins the tiebreak wins the set.

The match is played to the ‘best of three’ sets, which means that the first pair to win two sets wins, and generally a championship tie break is played if it is 1 set all. ‘Championship’ in this context extends the tie break to the target of first to 10, rather than 7. 

One other thing to mention is that if you end up on 40-40 in a game (known as deuce), another wonderful diversion from the rules of tennis happens, in Padel instead of literally two-ing and fro-ing, it is a golden point that decides each game. The receiving pair gets to decide who it is served to ( however in mixed doubles for instance the male player cannot serve to the female player) to try and lessen the advantage of the server by allowing their best player to return the ball. this is a great addition to not only speed up the game of Padel but also make it more exciting to play and increase the pressure on points, and the games of Tennis and squash should take note

Hopefully this has tidied up your scoring woes!  if you’re feeling court ready, find your local court using our club finder.