A new padel player looks fine warming up and falls apart in the first real point — not for lack of coordination, but because of habits that feel natural, especially coming from tennis. This piece collects seven of the most common beginner mistakes in padel, the mechanics behind each one, and the fix, drawn from padel coaching material.
No man's land is the trap almost every beginner falls into
Padel really only has two positions worth holding on court — at the net, where you attack, or at the service line, where you defend. The zone between them, known as no man's land, is where almost every beginner ends up by reflex, because it feels like a safe compromise. It is actually the worst spot on court — too far back to attack a short ball at the net, too far forward to react to a lob overhead, since a player there is simultaneously too close to the net to retreat and too far from it to attack. The fix is simple to state and hard to build as a habit — pick one of the two working positions and commit to it instead of freezing halfway between them.
Hitting hard is a tennis reflex that backfires on an enclosed court
A padel court is enclosed by glass on every side, so a ball hit hard does not sail out of play the way it would on an open tennis court — it rebounds off the glass and comes back faster than most players can reset for. The instinct to hit hard, carried straight over from tennis, is one of the most common beginner mistakes, in both attack and defence, because the apparent power of the shot leaves the hitter exposed the moment it rebounds. The fix is not to play passively but to build the point on patience, accelerating only on a short ball instead of forcing every shot out of reflex.
The back glass is not an obstacle, it is a second chance
Many beginners try to hit the ball before it reaches the back glass, a reflex from open courts where no glass exists. In padel, that same reflex puts a player in the worst possible position — letting the ball rebound off the glass buys almost a full extra second to reset and set up the shot calmly instead of rushing it. The opposite mistake happens just as often — crowding the glass at less than a metre away leaves no room to step forward into contact when the rebound arrives. The right distance is roughly a metre to a metre and a half off the glass, enough to move into the ball without being boxed in.
The underarm serve is not a shot you can improvise
A padel serve has to be hit underarm, below waist height, and the ball must bounce on the court before contact — a rule most beginners already respect. What trips people up is the rest of the technique. The correct grip for serving is the continental grip, the same one used for volleys, not the forehand grip, which closes the racket face and makes a below-waist shot much harder to control. Bouncing the ball too high before contact breaks the timing and risks meeting it above waist height, which is a fault — a bounce of 30 to 40 centimetres is enough. Standing side-on to the net rather than square to it is what gives the rotation that produces control, instead of forcing the shot from the arm alone.
A silent partner loses more points than the net does
Padel is played exclusively in doubles, and a lack of communication with a partner costs as many points as any technical error — balls left in the middle because both players assumed the other had it, collisions, gaps nobody covers because nobody claimed them. The fix costs one word, not practice — calling mine or yours before contact solves most situations like this. Just as important is moving as a pair — if one player advances to the net and the other stays back, a gap opens exactly on the diagonal, one the opposing team will find immediately.
A tight grip and a tennis backswing are the hardest habits to drop
A padel racket has no strings — it is a solid, perforated paddle, and that difference changes the technique of the shot itself. A grip held too tight, a habit carried from tennis where power comes from the moment of impact, just tires the forearm for nothing, since the solid paddle already provides the stiffness a shot needs. A full tennis-style backswing, with a wide preparatory motion, does not have time to finish on a court four times smaller than a tennis court, where the ball comes back fast off the walls. A shortened backswing with a relaxed grip until the last instant before contact fixes both problems at once.
The lob out of panic instead of as a weapon
A lob in padel is not only an emergency exit when the opponents are at the net and nothing else is on — at an advanced level it is an offensive shot, used deliberately to push the opposing pair off the net or force them into an awkward overhead. The typical beginner mistake is rushing it — seeing opponents close to the net, panicking, and flicking the ball upward with no balance and no depth, and a lob that lands too short or too low gives the opponent plenty of time to set up a comfortable smash from a strong position. A good lob lands close to the back glass, not just somewhere high, and comes from a prepared position rather than a last-instant reflex with no other choice left.
Sporta MD currently covers football, basketball, volleyball and tennis, with no bookable padel courts. This article exists because interest in padel is visibly growing in Chișinău, and the seven mistakes above are exactly what separates a player who looks comfortable on court from one still fighting every point.