10 padel beginner mistakes (and how to fix them)

The most common padel beginner mistake is rushing the back wall ball. Beginners hit it on the way in instead of letting it bounce off the glass and come back to them. Fix it by taking one step back, waiting, and playing the ball off the wall at waist height. The same patience principle fixes most of the other nine mistakes too.

The pattern behind most beginner mistakes

Almost every beginner mistake comes from one of three patterns. Tennis carry-over, where players bring big swings to a 20m by 10m box. Rushing the ball, where they hit it before it has finished its job. And going for outcome before technique. Once you see the pattern, ten problems become one habit to retrain.

Mistake 1: Rushing the back wall ball

The single biggest one. A ball lands deep, the beginner panics and tries to hit it on the way in. The result is a cramped shot that either nets or pops up for the opponents to smash. Padel is the only racket sport where the wall is your friend, not your enemy.

The fix is patience. Let the ball hit the glass, watch it come back, play it at waist height with a relaxed grip. This is the contrapared, and reading it is the fastest way to improve. Drill it by feeding lobs to a partner who plays every ball off the back glass.

Fix this one first and you will halve your unforced errors in a single session. The drill that fixes it is the solo wall drill on our beginner padel drills page.

Mistake 2: Overarm or too-hard serves

Padel serves are underarm, below the waist, and bounced first. Tennis players reflexively want to toss and smash. Beginners who hit hard, flat first serves miss most, then dink a soft second and hand the returner a free attack.

Forget power and aim for placement. A slow, sliced serve into the body or out wide off the side glass causes far more trouble than a flat bomb. Drop, bounce, brush across with an open face so it skids low off the glass.

Run a basket drill: 20 serves at a cone in the corner, score yourself out of 20. Do it before every social game for a month and your hold rate climbs sharply. The drill that fixes it is the serve and return warm-up on our drills page, paired with a fortnightly coaching check.

Mistake 3: Aiming down the line too early

The down-the-line shot looks decisive on TV. In a beginner rally it is a tax. The opponent at the net cuts it off, volleys back cross-court, and you have turned a neutral exchange into a defensive scramble.

Live cross-court until you have a clear opening. Cross-court gives you a longer diagonal, a lower net in the middle, and the side wall as a safety net. Hit down the line only when you are inside the service line and the opposing net player has drifted.

Drill it: play a tie-break where every shot must land cross-court. After a few of those, openings appear naturally. The drill is the cross-court rally drill on our drills page, ten minutes of strict diagonals.

Mistake 4: Standing too deep when returning

Tennis players stand a metre behind the baseline to return. In padel that puts the side glass directly behind your head, with no time to react to a wide serve off the wall.

Stand on or just inside the baseline, closer to the side wall than the centre. Take the serve early, chip cross-court, move to the net. This is the foundation of beginner padel positioning, and most coaches drill it in the first three lessons.

Mark your starting spot with a cone. If you find yourself stepping back during the rally, reset. The drill that fixes it is the return-and-rush sequence on our drills page, ten reps each side.

Mistake 5: Overhitting volleys

Beginners at the net want to put the ball away. Big swing, hard hit, ball flies long off the back glass and the opponents counter for a winner. Padel volleys are blocks, not punches.

Shorten the swing dramatically. Punch through with a firm wrist, aim for the opponents feet, absorb pace rather than add it. The goal of a volley is to make the opponents play a tough next ball, not end the point in one hit.

Drill it with a feeder hitting waist-high balls from the baseline. Volley fifty in a row at a target two metres inside the opposite service line. Anything past the line counts as a miss. The drill that fixes it is the net volley exchange on our drills page.

Mistake 6: Smashing when a bandeja is the right shot

A lob comes over your head and the instinct is to jump and smash. Half the time you mis-time it. The other half it bounces off the back glass and the opponents counter-lob to your empty net position. The smash gave up your position for nothing.

The fix is the bandeja, a controlled three-quarter overhead that keeps you at the net. Slice across the ball, send it deep into the opponents corner, stay forward. Save the smash for short lobs you can attack from inside the service line.

Drill it in pairs: one player feeds lobs, the other plays bandejas back, then sprints forward to volley the reply. Twenty reps each side. Add the vibora once the bandeja is grooved. The drill that fixes it is the bandeja shadow drill on our drills page.

Mistake 7: Buying a diamond racket too early

Beginners watch pros with high-balance diamond rackets and copy them. Diamond head-shape rackets have a small sweet spot near the top. Miss it and the ball flies anywhere. Progress stalls.

Start with a round-shape racket. Big sweet spot, balanced weight, forgiving on off-centre hits. Move up to a teardrop after six to twelve months, a diamond only when your technique justifies it. Spending premium-tier money on a pro racket with high balance before you can swing properly is the most expensive mistake on this list.

Most clubs let you demo rackets for a session fee. Try three round-shape models. The right racket should feel boring and predictable, not exciting. The drill: a demo hour, three round rackets, pick the dullest one.

Mistake 8: Wearing tennis or running shoes

Tennis shoes are for hard courts. Running shoes are for forward motion. Padel is played on artificial turf with sand infill and demands lateral movement, sharp stops, and pivots. The wrong sole grips when you want to slide, slides when you want to grip, and rolls ankles.

A dedicated padel shoe with a herringbone or omni-pattern sole, reinforced toe, and lateral support. Bullpadel, Asics, Wilson and Babolat all make solid entry models at £70-110 in the UK (~$90-140 US, ~€82-130 EU, ~AED 320-500 UAE). Cheaper than a hospital trip after a twisted ankle.

For clay-pattern indoor courts, check the sole spec with the shop. The fix: a trip to a padel-specialist retailer, three pairs, pick the cleanest pivot on a sand-infill demo strip.

Mistake 9: Not calling the score clearly

Sounds petty until you have lost a friendly to a scoring argument. Padel uses tennis scoring (15, 30, 40, game) and the server calls it before every point: server first, then receiver. Beginners mumble, skip it, or call from memory and end up in a dispute.

A habit, not a skill. Call the score loud and clear before every serve. Both pairs hear it, both pairs agree, the point starts. If you forget, ask. What people mind is finishing a tight game and not knowing who won.

It marks you out as a player who takes the game seriously. The fix is a self-imposed rule: for ten games, refuse to serve until you have called the score. After ten games it is automatic.

Mistake 10: Trying to win instead of trying to learn

The meta mistake. Beginners turn up to a social game, switch on competitive mode, and play only the shots they already know. They avoid the bandeja, they never lob, they never come to the net.

Set a learning goal every session. One shot, one idea, one weakness. Today I will lob ten times even if I miss half. Today I will play every back wall ball using the bajada. You will lose games early and improve faster than anyone in your group.

For structure, our padel coaching for beginners page covers what a good first block of lessons looks like. A coach watching you play once a fortnight is the highest-leverage spend in the sport. The drill: one technical aim on a sticky note, reviewed after every game.

Severity ranking of the 10 mistakes

Mistake	Severity	Why it hurts	Difficulty to fix
Rushing the back wall ball	HIGH	Loses 40% of back-court points	Easy
Smashing when bandeja is correct	HIGH	Sets up counter-attacks	Medium
Overhitting volleys	HIGH	Pace-related unforced errors	Medium
Aiming down the line too early	MEDIUM	Risky, low percentage	Easy
Standing too deep when returning	MEDIUM	Forfeits net position	Easy
Overarm or too-hard serves	MEDIUM	Faults + injury risk	Easy
Buying a diamond racket too early	HIGH	Hurts long-term development	Easy (just buy correctly)
Wearing tennis or running shoes	MEDIUM	Slip risk, injury	Trivial (buy proper shoes)
Not calling the score clearly	LOW	Etiquette friction	Trivial
Trying to win instead of learn	MEDIUM	Slows development	Mindset shift

The HIGH-severity mistakes are not the ones beginners worry about most. People obsess over scoring and shoes, when the real point-bleeders are the back wall ball, the wrong overhead choice, and overhitting volleys. Most are Easy or Medium to fix once you know what to drill. The Mindset entry gates progress on every other line.

The 5 most common by level

Different mistakes dominate at different stages. Wall-reading habits show up first, tactical mistakes appear once you can rally, and the mindset and etiquette layer becomes the bottleneck once technique is decent. Here is what dominates, by sessions played.

First 10 sessions: rushing the back wall ball is universal. Players have not trained their eye to the rebound, so they swing on the way in. Overhitting volleys arrives the moment they first reach the net. Wearing tennis or running shoes is the cheapest mistake to spot, in the warm-up.

Sessions 10 to 50: most players can rally cross-court but start aiming down the line too early, chasing winners they have not earned. The bandeja-versus-smash decision is the next bottleneck. This is also where the wrong racket purchase happens: a player walks into a shop keen, walks out with a diamond they cannot control.

Sessions 50 and beyond: technical mistakes have mostly resolved. What lingers is positioning under pressure, score-calling discipline in tight games, and the win-versus-learn mindset that decides whether a player plateaus or climbs. By this point a fortnightly coaching session is worth more than another piece of kit.

Drill to fix each mistake

Mistake	Drill from /get-started/drills/	How long until improvement
Rushing the back wall	Solo wall drill	2-3 sessions
Aiming down the line	Cross-court rally drill	4-5 sessions
Overhitting volleys	Net volley exchange	2 sessions
Wrong bandeja vs smash choice	Bandeja shadow drill	3-4 sessions
Overarm or too-hard serves	Serve and return warm-up	2-3 sessions

Frequently asked questions