If you come from a tennis background, padel probably caught your eye because it looks familiar. Two sides of a court, a net in the middle, a fuzzy yellow ball. But step onto a padel court and you will quickly realize these are two very different sports. From the enclosed glass walls to the solid rackets, padel has its own identity, its own tactics, and its own learning curve.
In this guide, we break down every major difference between padel and tennis so you know exactly what to expect before your first match.
Positioning is the invisible skill that separates club players who win from club players who struggle — and the good news is it’s entirely learnable. You don’t need a better forehand or a harder smash. You need to understand where to stand, why to stand there, and how to move with your partner as a unit. Master that, and everything else in your game gets easier.
About a month ago, Playtomic and Deloitte (Monitor Deloitte) released their yearly “state of padel”-report called Global Padel Report.
It’s the second consecutive year Playtomic partner with Monitor Deloitte to release the report which normally is a fantastic read for all players following the sport closely.
The report focuses on the growth of the sport both from a leisure and professional perspective and also showcases the growth of the sport as an industry.
In the introduction of the report, Pablo Carro, the Co-Founder of Playtomic writes:
We are very certain about the fact that Padel has become a global sport, showcasing robust annual growth and promising signs of real traction in key-markets that will drive us to a 6 billion industry in 2026.
Pablo Carro (Co-Founder Playtomic) & Elena Martin (Senior Manager Monitor Deloitte)
That’s a phenomenal number. The report actually doesn’t mention whether this is euro (€) or dollar ($), but regardless it showcases the strength of the traction that Padel has gotten in a wide array of countries.
I’ll break down the key points from the report in a digestible manner in this post. Feel free to add your commentary or questions and I’ll get back to you.
A few weeks ago, Playtomic and Deloitte (Monitor Deloitte) released a massive 115 pages report labelled Global Padel Report. The report, focuses on the growth of the sport from both a leisure and professional perspective and shows a lot of interesting points.
In the introduction of the report, Martita Ortega and Fernando “Bela” Balasteguin speaks about how they got started with playing padel. Even though the report is labelled as global, the US is hardly mentioned, probably because of its relative growth to pickleball in the US.
In this article, we’ll give you the most important highlights from the report.
