Padel vs tennis, pickleball and squash

Padel is closest to tennis: same scoring, pressurised ball, but with glass walls and an underarm serve on a smaller 20x10m enclosed court. Pickleball is the most accessible of the four: tiny court, plastic ball, slower pace, side-out scoring to 11. Squash is the fittest player’s sport: one-on-one, fully enclosed, relentless rallies. If you have ever held a tennis racket, padel will feel familiar within twenty minutes.

The short answer

Padel vs tennis: same scoring, smaller enclosed court (200 m² vs roughly 260 m² for doubles), underarm serve, glass walls in play. Tennis players adapt fastest, but they have to unlearn the topspin drive and trust the back wall.

Padel vs pickleball: padel uses a pressurised rubber ball and a solid composite racket on a walled court; pickleball uses a perforated plastic ball and a flat paddle on a smaller open court with side-out scoring to 11. Pickleball is gentler on the body. Padel rewards positioning.

Padel vs squash: both use walls, but squash is fully enclosed singles played at a brutal pace, while padel is open-topped doubles with tennis scoring. Squash is a fitness sport first. Padel is a tactics sport first.

Dimensions at a glance

Before any comparison gets into the feel of each sport, it helps to see the raw numbers together. The table below sets out court area, format, ball, racket, scoring and whether the walls form part of play.

Sport	Court area	Players	Ball type	Racket type	Scoring	Walls in play
Padel	200 m² (20x10m)	Doubles	Pressurised rubber	Solid composite	Best of 3 sets, 15-30-40	Yes (3m glass + 1m mesh)
Tennis	260 m² doubles, 196 m² singles	Singles or doubles	Pressurised felt rubber	Strung	Best of 3 or 5, 15-30-40	No
Pickleball	81 m² (13.4×6.1m)	Singles or doubles	Hollow plastic perforated	Solid composite paddle	First to 11 (win by 2)	No
Squash	62 m² (9.75×6.4m)	Singles typically	Hollow rubber	Strung small head	First to 11 (PSA)	Yes (4 walls)

The first surprise for most newcomers is the padel court size. The line you hear repeated online is that a padel court is roughly a third of a tennis court. That is wrong. At 200 m² versus 260 m² for tennis doubles, a padel court is about 77% of a tennis doubles court, not 33%.

The walls make it feel smaller because rallies stay in closer quarters, but the floor area itself is closer to tennis than people expect.

The second surprise is how much smaller pickleball and squash are. A pickleball court is roughly 40% the size of a padel court. A squash court is even tighter at around 62 m².

That density is what gives both sports their character. Pickleball compresses the angles to suit slow exchanges, and squash compresses the geometry so the ball is almost always within two strides of the next player.

Padel vs tennis

Padel and tennis share a family tree. The scoring is identical: 15, 30, 40, game, six games to a set, best of three sets in most club play. Where the two sports diverge is the court, the serve, and the wall.

A regulation padel court measures 20m long by 10m wide, giving 200 m² of playing surface, enclosed by glass and mesh up to 4m high. A tennis doubles court is roughly 260 m² inside the lines, with no enclosure.

That makes padel about 77% the size of a doubles tennis court, not a third as is often repeated. The myth persists because the walls keep the action condensed; the floor itself is closer in size than the eye suggests.

The serve in padel goes underarm, bounced once before contact, and below waist height. In tennis the serve is overarm and explosive. This single rule change is the great equaliser: a 70-year-old returning to sport can rally against a 25-year-old without being aced off the court. Our serve guide walks through the technique in detail.

Tennis players adapt to padel faster than any other background, and the reason is the shared stroke vocabulary. The forehand, backhand and volley all transfer. The footwork patterns are familiar. The mental model of the doubles court (one player up, one back; communication on every ball) sits ready in muscle memory after a single set.

The hard part is unlearning. Tennis players carry four habits across that hurt them in padel. The first is the topspin drive: a ball that would dip in tennis sits up off the bounce in padel and gets smashed.

The second is the flat serve, which has to soften into a slice or a body serve under the waist. The third is the swing path: padel rackets need a shorter, more compact swing, especially on the volley.

The fourth is the back-glass instinct. Tennis players want to attack a deep ball, when the right move is often to let it rebound off the back glass and play it second.

Two shots in particular separate good tennis converts from confused ones: the bajada, where you take a ball off the back wall on the attack, and the contrapared, where you intentionally play the ball into your own wall to clear pressure. Neither has a tennis equivalent.

The racket is solid, not strung, made of carbon, fibreglass and EVA foam, and weighs around 360-385g for most players. It has no sweet spot in the traditional sense, which makes timing forgiving for beginners and demanding for power players. See our court dimensions guide for the full layout.

Padel vs pickleball

Padel and pickleball are often lumped together as the two booming racket sports of the decade, but they are very different games. The confusion is understandable: both are easier to pick up than tennis, both are social, both are exploding in club counts globally.

A pickleball court is 13.4m long by 6.1m wide, around 81 m². That is less than half the size of a padel court. Pickleball is played without walls. The ball is a hollow perforated plastic sphere, light and slow, with a top speed roughly a third of a padel ball.

Speed is the biggest gap. A padel ball off a flat smash leaves the strings at roughly three times the speed of a pickleball ball off a paddle. That changes the reaction window. Padel rewards anticipation and net coverage; pickleball rewards touch and patience. Neither is harder, but they ask different things of the player.

The racket is a paddle: flat, solid, smaller than a padel racket, and stringless. There is no foam core. Touch and placement matter more than power. The non-volley zone, the “kitchen”, forces players to drop shots rather than smash, which keeps points winnable for older and less athletic players.

Strategic depth is the second gap. Padel has more shots in the bag than pickleball: lobs, smashes by three, vibora, bandeja, plus the entire range of wall play options.

Pickleball is a flatter game by design. The kitchen rule simplifies geometry and pushes most rallies into a dink exchange near the net. That is a strength for accessibility and a limit for variety.

Scoring is the third big difference. Pickleball traditionally uses side-out scoring to 11, win by 2, where only the serving team can score a point. Padel uses standard tennis scoring with rally-point on the star point or sudden-death deuce in some formats. Both are easy to follow once you have played a session.

The wall game is the dividing line. In padel, the back and side glass are part of the court. A ball travelling fast past you in pickleball is dead; the same ball in padel rebounds off the glass and is still in play.

That fact alone makes padel rallies roughly twice as long on average. It shifts the tactical centre of gravity away from outright winners toward sustained pressure.

Origin matters less than people think, but it is worth knowing. Padel was invented in Acapulco, Mexico in 1969 by Enrique Corcuera. Pickleball was invented on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, USA in 1965 by Joel Pritchard and friends. Both began as backyard inventions for family play.

If you want lower impact, slower rallies and the easiest entry point of any racket sport, pickleball wins. If you want the social four-player format, the wall play and a faster ball, padel wins. Padel rewards rally length; pickleball rewards short exchanges. The two sports are complements, not substitutes.

Padel vs squash

Squash players assume padel will feel familiar because of the walls. It does, briefly, then it does not. The two sports share an enclosed playing surface but almost nothing else.

A squash court measures 9.75m by 6.4m, smaller than padel, and the walls are fully enclosed, including a front wall the ball must hit on every shot.

Padel walls are present but the ball must bounce on the floor inside the court before it touches glass. In squash the wall is the target. In padel the wall is the safety net.

The enclosed-wall psychology carries across in useful ways. Squash players already track angles, read pace off a hard surface and stay calm with the ball behind them. That part transfers.

The rule change is the bounce: in squash the ball can go wall-first; in padel it must hit the floor first or the point ends. New padel players from squash often hit the back glass on the full and lose the point until the habit breaks.

Format is the next divide. Squash is overwhelmingly played as singles. Padel is overwhelmingly played as doubles, and the official competitive format is doubles full stop. That changes everything about positioning, communication and tactics. The cross-court patterns that win in singles squash do not always win in padel doubles, because two opponents cover the angles.

Scoring in modern squash is PSA point-a-rally to 11, win by 2. Padel uses tennis scoring. The serve in squash goes from a service box to the front wall above the cut line. In padel the serve is underarm, bounced, into the diagonal service box.

Athleticism is the headline. Squash demands more sustained cardiovascular effort than almost any indoor sport: heart rate sits near maximum for most of a match because rallies link directly with no break.

Padel is more about anticipation, racket skill and short bursts. A reasonably fit beginner can play a competitive padel set on day one. The same person will be folded over a knee at minute four of a squash match.

Both sports demand high fitness, just in different shapes: squash all-out cardio, padel sustained anaerobic.

The social dimension is the other split. Padel is a four-player game by default, with two partners on each side and constant chat between points. Squash is solo intensity: one opponent, one body in the way, no time for conversation.

Coaches typically describe padel as a sport you play with friends and squash as a sport you play against an opponent.

Beginners coming from squash adapt quickly to the wall reads but tend to over-power their shots and stand too close to the back glass. The fix is patience and net position, both covered in our rules guide.

Scoring is where confusion bites hardest for newcomers, especially players moving between two of these sports in the same week. The table below puts the four scoring systems side by side.

Sport	Point format	Game	Set/match	Special rules
Padel	15-30-40	First to 4 (win by 2)	Best of 3 sets, tiebreak at 6-6	Star point at deuce (2026 FIP)
Tennis	15-30-40	First to 4 (win by 2)	Best of 3 or 5	Net cord = let on serve
Pickleball	Side-out (only serving team scores)	First to 11	Singles or doubles to 11	Two-bounce rule (must let serve bounce)
Squash	Rally-point	First to 11	Best of 3 or 5	Lets and strokes for blocking

The biggest live-match change for padel in 2026 is the star point at deuce, ratified by the FIP and now in use across Premier Padel and most national leagues.

Instead of a traditional ad/deuce sequence, the next point decides the game and the returning pair chooses the side. Tennis players will recognise the format from coaching no-ad scoring; pickleball players will recognise the win-by-2 logic from their own side-out system.

Which suits which player

Pick the sport that fits the body and the brief, not the trend. A short decision tree, based on what coaches typically advise when newcomers ask which to start with:

If you have a tennis background: padel is the easiest transition of the four. Scoring is identical, racket vocabulary transfers and court sense lands within the first set. Expect a few weeks of unlearning the topspin drive and the baseline instinct.

If you have a squash background: wall reading and angle play give you a head-start, but the bounce-first rule needs deliberate practice. Expect to over-hit for the first month and to feel oddly far from your partner; the doubles format takes a few sessions to settle into.

If you have a pickleball background: the small-court instinct helps but the wall is genuinely new territory. The doubles framing transfers; the rally length and racket weight do not. Expect to be surprised by how much faster padel feels in the first ten minutes.

If you have no background at all: padel is the most beginner-friendly of the four. The underarm serve removes the hardest single skill in tennis, the walls forgive depth errors that would end a pickleball point, and the doubles format means you always have a partner covering half the court. Most newcomers can rally and score from the first session.

If you want a hard cardio workout: squash, every time. No other racket sport touches it for sustained heart-rate effort. Padel will give you intervals; squash will give you a beasting.

If you want the most social, least intimidating option: pickleball or padel. Pickleball is gentler on knees and shoulders and the learning curve is the flattest of the four.

Padel is more social because four players are on court by default and rallies last long enough for actual conversation between points. Both have strong club etiquette codes that keep mixed-ability play friendly.

If you are coming back to sport after a long break: pickleball first, then padel. Both let you compete on day one. Tennis has the steepest skill barrier for adults starting cold, and squash demands a fitness base that takes weeks to build.

If you want a sport you can play forever: padel and pickleball both have strong over-60 club scenes because the serve does not punish ageing shoulders and the court size is manageable. See what is padel for more on the longevity angle.

Tens of millions of players now play padel worldwide, with the sport growing fastest in continental Europe, the Gulf and Southeast Asia. The UK is catching up quickly, which is why this is the question we get most often from new players.

The honest answer: try all four if you can, but if you only have one session in you, make it padel.

If you played tennis first

Tennis players have the shortest path into padel, but the three adjustments below decide whether week one feels frustrating or natural.

1. The underarm serve. Forget the kick, the slice from the shoulder, the toss. The padel serve is dropped, bounced and hit below the waist into the diagonal box. It is closer to a controlled drop-volley than a tennis serve. Spend the first session getting consistency rather than power, then add slice and body serves once the rhythm is grooved.

2. Trusting the wall. The tennis instinct is to take every deep ball on the rise. In padel that loses points. The right move on a hard, deep return is to let it pass, watch it hit the back glass or side glass, and play the second bounce. This is the single biggest mental shift for tennis converts.

3. Shorter swing path. Padel rackets are heavier in the head and unforgiving on long swings. Especially on the volley, the swing path needs to be short and compact, more punch than swing.

Drop-shot proximity at the net also rewards a quieter grip and minimal backswing. Read our common mistakes guide for the full set of pitfalls tennis players fall into.

If you played pickleball first

Pickleball players bring useful instincts to padel: hand speed at the net, touch on the drop, comfort with a solid paddle. Two adjustments matter more than anything else.

1. Doubles partner coordination. Singles padel barely exists socially; the entire club format is doubles. That means partner movement matters from minute one. The two of you cover the court together: one up, one back at first, then both at the net once the point is won.

Cross-court rallies, lateral switches and constant communication are the norm. Pickleball doubles is a useful base, but the longer padel rallies demand sharper handoffs. See our positioning guide for the standard patterns.

2. The wall game is new territory. Nothing in pickleball prepares you for a ball that travels past your shoulder, hits glass and comes back into play. The first sessions feel disorienting because the rally does not end where you expect.

Trust the bounce, give yourself space behind the service line, and play the second ball as if it were a normal groundstroke. Within a fortnight the wall stops looking like a hazard and starts looking like an extra player on your side.

If you played squash first

Squash players walk in expecting the walls to feel like home. Two specific differences trip them up early, and both are physical rather than tactical.

1. The racket is heavier and the swing longer. A squash racket weighs around 130-150g; a padel racket weighs 360-385g. That is more than double. The swing path is also longer than a squash flick because the ball is heavier and slower off the strings.

Squash converts who try to “wrist” the ball in padel find it dies in the net. The fix is a longer arm action, a more upright contact point and patience on the backswing.

2. Bounce first, then wall. Squash is a wall-first game: the ball must hit the front wall every shot, and side and back walls are fair targets at any time. Padel is the opposite.

The ball must bounce on the floor inside your court before it can touch the back glass; a ball flown directly into the glass on the full is your point lost. Squash players instinctively hunt the wall on the attack and need a few sessions to retrain the eye to the floor-first sequence.

Frequently asked questions