Common padel beginner mistakes

Key takeaways

• Power is the beginner instinct; placement and consistency win more points.
• Positioning too close or too far from the net both cause avoidable problems.
• The walls are a tool, not an obstacle — fighting them backfires either way.
• Silent doubles teams lose points to collisions and gaps, not skill.
• Tennis habits — big backswings, staying back — do not transfer cleanly to padel.
• A "hammer" grip locks the wrist and quietly wrecks net play.

Mistake 1: Swinging for power on everything

Nearly every new player's first instinct is to hit the ball as hard as they can, the way a tennis groundstroke rewards pace. Padel punishes it instead. The court is a third the size of a tennis court and enclosed in glass, so a hard, flat shot has far less room to land in before it either sails long or slams into the mesh above the glass. Coaches commonly describe padel pace on a rough scale where most rally shots sit at moderate effort, reserved harder hitting for a clear attacking opportunity, and soft, controlled touches for defense and net play. You do not need the exact numbers to get the idea: if you are swinging near full effort on a routine ball mid-rally, you are almost certainly overhitting it.

Fix: Halve your backswing and think placement before power. Aim for depth and corners rather than pace. The satisfying, hard-hit winner will still be there when you actually have a short ball to attack — save the effort for that moment.

It is not just a scoreboard problem, either: overhitting and a long backswing are both flagged in padel injuries and how to avoid them as contributors to elbow strain, since a bigger, harder swing increases the jarring load on your forearm with every off-center hit.

Mistake 2: Standing in the wrong spot

This one cuts two ways. Some beginners creep right up to the net out of eagerness to be aggressive, which leaves no time to react to a lob over their head. Others plant themselves near the back wall out of old tennis habits, which means they never take the net — one of the most valuable positions in padel, where a huge share of points are decided.

Fix: As a rough default when you are not actively attacking, hold roughly halfway between the service line and the net. Move up together with your partner after a strong shot, and retreat together when you are defending a lob — moving as a pair, not as two individuals, is most of what good positioning actually is.

Mistake 3: Fighting the walls instead of using them

The walls are what make padel padel, and beginners tend to handle them one of two bad ways: either backing away and refusing to let the ball bounce off the glass at all, which gives up a huge amount of usable court, or hitting so hard that the rebound flies straight back at the opponents' racket for an easy smash. Neither extreme respects what the wall is actually for — extending a rally and buying yourself time to reset.

Fix: Let the ball bounce on the floor and off the back glass before you commit to a swing, and take pace off shots that are heading toward your own back wall so the rebound does not hand the point away. This single adjustment does more for a beginner's results than almost any other technical fix.

Mistake 4: Playing doubles in silence

Padel is a doubles sport almost everywhere it is played, and a huge share of avoidable points lost by beginner pairs come down to communication, not skill. Two players both leave a lob for the other, both go for the same ball down the middle, or neither covers a gap because nobody called it early enough.

Fix: Agree on basics before you even start — who takes the middle ball, who calls lobs, a simple "mine" or "yours" on anything in between. It feels unnecessary for a casual social game, right up until it saves you three points in the first set. For the fuller picture on positioning as a pair and holding the net together, see our padel doubles strategy guide. Silence with your own partner is one mistake; not knowing the unwritten expectations toward whoever is on the other side of the net is another — see padel etiquette for those.

Mistake 5: Tennis habits that do not transfer

Players coming from tennis usually adapt fastest overall, but they also bring specific habits that actively hurt them early on: a long, tennis-length backswing that padel's shorter court punishes, a tendency to stay back near the baseline instead of advancing to net, and an urge to go for outright winners rather than building a point. None of this is really a "mistake" so much as an instinct that needs deliberate unlearning.

Fix: Treat your first few sessions as a chance to actively shorten your swing and practice advancing to the net after a solid shot, even when it feels premature. It will feel wrong before it feels right — that is normal.

Mistake 6: Gripping the racket like a hammer

Watch a beginner court for five minutes and you will spot it: a full "hammer" or "frying pan" grip, wrapped tightly around the handle with the palm flat against one face. It feels natural coming from everyday objects, but it locks the wrist and makes the small, controlled volleys and defensive shots near the net — a huge share of padel — much harder to execute cleanly. Coaches consistently flag grip as one of the first things worth correcting, alongside backswing length, because a poor grip quietly undermines almost every other shot you try to fix.

Fix: Hold the handle more like you would shake hands with it, with the base knuckle of your index finger roughly on the top bevel rather than flat against a face. It will feel slightly unstable at first compared to the hammer grip's brute security — that looseness is exactly what lets your wrist do fine adjustment work at the net. A worn, slick overgrip makes the hammer grip even more tempting since it is easier to hold onto tightly — our padel overgrip guide covers how often to replace yours and the signs it is overdue.

Simple drills to fix these mistakes

You do not need a coach to start correcting these. A short, low-pressure wall-rebound drill — feed a ball to your own back glass and practice letting it bounce before returning it — builds wall comfort fast. A positioning walk-through with your partner, physically standing where you should be for a serve, a return, and a defensive lob, turns positioning into muscle memory instead of a rule you have to remember mid-point. And playing entire practice points at half pace, focused purely on keeping the ball in play, retrains the swing-hard instinct better than being told to "slow down" ever will.

Is it worth getting coached, or just playing it out?

Honest answer: it depends on how seriously you are taking the sport. If padel is a once-a-month social outing, working through this list on your own with a regular playing partner is plenty — you will course-correct naturally. If you are playing weekly and want to actually improve, one or two group lessons early tend to fix grip, backswing and positioning in a fraction of the time self-correction takes, because a coach catches the habit before it becomes automatic. Either path is fine; just be honest with yourself about which one you are on.

Where to go from here

If some of this is new territory, it is worth revisiting the basics: padel rules covers the serve, faults and lets that trip up beginners just as often as technique does, and racket shapes explained will help you understand why a forgiving, round-shaped racket is usually the right early choice while these habits are still forming.

FAQs

Last updated August 29, 2026 · PadelAnywhere Editorial

Sources

Guidance is drawn from patterns consistently reported across padel coaching resources and club instructors, cross-checked against multiple independent sources. It reflects general coaching convention rather than a single formal study, and technique should always be assessed in person by a qualified coach for anything beyond general habits.