So you want to improve your padel game? You have come to the right place. First of all, our "how to play" section contains dozens of articles to help you improve your game with individual shots and tactics. But in the beginning all of this can seem a bit overwhelming. How do you choose what to focus on? In this guide I have tried to collect the best tips on how to improve when you are just starting.

1) Lessons from a good coach

One of the main focus points in my opinion is to get some help from a coach before you learn too many bad habits. A good coach can do wonders for your technique and basic game. If you (like most people) play hundreds of games without any instructions, you will teach yourself to play with a poor technique and it will become much harder to change.

A good quality coach will be able to spot flaws in each individual stroke and give you pointers on how to improve. Hopefully, depending on where you are in the world, you have access to some decent coaches. If not, I would focus on online academies like The Padel School, which has an excellent paid section which is fairly cheap. They also have tons of free content online on their Youtube channel.

Now something I learned the hard way - if you don't write down what you learned with your coach and actually practice it, you will forget it. You can't really use your competitive (or casual) matches to really learn what the coaches tried to teach you. You need to practice it. Lets say you learn to fix your forehand groundstroke or a volley in your coaching session. What do you think works best to help you lock in what you learned; trying to focus on the technique during a game, or a training session with a friend where you can perform the same shot a hundred times in a row? The answer is obvious.

2) Focus on the basics first

Everybody wants to master the fanciest shots first while forgetting the absolute basics. Smashes, viboras, bajadas - beautiful winning shots that are hard to master. Oh boy have I seen hundreds of players desperately working on their power smash and getting pretty decent at it - but will lose match after match because the basics like groundstrokes, volleys, lobs or the simplest of overheads are in a poor shape. It doesn't really help you much to have a massive power smash if you can't keep the pressure with your volleys. If your groundstrokes are lacking you won't be able to put any pressure to the players at the net.

In my opinion it is absolutely crucial to get decent at the most basic of shots first; It becomes a foundation for the rest of your game. It makes to miss less easy shots, which is one of the foundations of padel; not missing a easy shot and letting your opponent miss is worth just as much as hitting a beautiful winner - and most likely it will give you 10x more points in a game compared to a smash.

If it was completely up to me, I would prioritize improving shots in the following order:

1. Groundstrokes
2. Volleys
3. Basic overheads like bandeja
4. Lobs
5. More advanced shots...
   1. Vibora
   2. Smash
   3. Bajada
   4. Chiquita
   5. Drop shots
   6. etc...

3) Training/practice sessions regularly

As mentioned earlier, training sessions will level up your game like nothing else - in my local city in Norway, probably less than 5% of players do any training sessions at all. This is fine, the remaining 95% have fun with the game and enjoy playing casually. But if you want to level up your game and beat better players, doing regular training sessions is the deciding factor in getting you there.

The possibility of doing training will of course depend on your location and available facilities. Many facilities will offer heavy discounts during non-peak hours. Can you perhaps train in your lunch break? Or before work? Chances are, you will be able to do so for rather cheap. In my city they offer a membership which gives you 90% of regular court fees if you pay around $110/month. During non-peak hours this means that I can train for 1-2 hours for the very affordable cost of $2-4.

Try to find a friend or perhaps your playing partner which is able to train in the same timeslot as you - with only two people on the court, there is a wide variety of training drills available. Even just hitting back and forth is good training compared to a match. You can both be back at defense hitting groundstrokes, one of you can be at the net practicing volleys while the other is practicing defense. If you have a basket with balls your partner can feed you lobs to train your overheads. The sky is the limit here.

Me personally, I usually have 2 training sessions a week combined with 2 matches a week. This lets me improve steadily week after week. What I focus on depends on what I think is lacking in my game, pointers I have from a recent coaching session or similar. If you get bored with it, switch it up. Try something fun, like dropshots, smashes, bajadas, whatever you want to keep it interesting.

Bonus points to improve your game

Points 1, 2 and 3 covers what I think is the absolute most important when wanting to improve your padel game as a beginner. I have a few more topics below but they are definitely not as important as what is above. I decided to call them bonus points :)

Bonus point 1) Get comfortable with a grip you can grow with

In padel, I would say most coaches recommend using this thing that we call the "continental grip". Your first question might be; why do we need a name for how to hold the racket? Well the answer comes from tennis! There is a variety of different grips available in tennis for which some has also made its way over to padel. When Googling a bit to research for this article, I was puzzled by the amount of different grips used in tennis. Semi-Western Backhand grip? Eastern Forehand Tennis grip? Read more here if you are curious.

Anyway. In padel the contental grip is the most versatile. It is also sometimes called the "hammer grip" because it is somewhat similar to how you would grab a hammer. It can be used for basically all padel shots, which is very good news to a beginner. If you want to get advanced in padel, for some shots like the vibora or kicksmash you might want to change the grip slightly in order to let you give the ball even more spin, but that is not in the scope of this article.

One of the main benefits of the continental grip is that you allow your wrist to make a lot of movement. Very many beginners, even into years of playing, have what we call a "frying pan grip", which has very little wrist mobility. This is why I recommend getting used to a continental-like grip early on. It doesn't have to be perfect, but closer to a continental than to how you hold a frying pan. This will help you a lot in the long run, and is much much easier to adapt to if you have played 50 games than if you have played 500 games.

I recommend this rather old Youtibe video from The Padel School if you want some more details on how to use the continental grip. Also here is a more recent video from the same channel.

Bonus point 2) Learn common basic strategies from Youtube and online content

When I started playing padel in 2022 there were a lot of padel content available on Youtube, but I really have to say that this has exploded in the past couple of years. The existing channels from back then has greatly improved their size and quality (hello The Padel School and Otro Nivel Padel) and a bunch of new creators have popped up. You can now follow the journey of pros, semi-pros, individual coaches and much more giving excellent short-form tips and longer guides. You can learn basic strategies, techniques, advanced shots and strategies and everything in between these days. You can even follow beginners/intermediates as they travel to Spain to improve their game and try to break into the advanced or even professional circuit.

It is truly a blessing to be a padel fanatic online these days - content is popping up multiple times a day and it is so fun to see.

Anyway, the point was; If you want to learn individual shots, strategies or everything else related to padel - use Youtube! There are hours upon hours of quality content available for you to learn and bring into your game.

Bonus point 3) Get a beginner friendly racket

Let me preface this paragraph by saying something important; I am not a racket-nerd or gearhead. I learned from my previous sport (disc-golf) that it is not mainly about equipment. I have tons of friends and players in my club that are obsessed with buying the latest rackets, their marketing material, extreme technology this and that and everything else. I am not part of that club. What I learned from the gear-craze of disc-golf is that even if I had 100+ frisbees in my cabinet, the main essence is about basic technique and skills, NOT the specific frisbee or padel racket. Why do you think professional players in most sports can move from one brand to another from season to season to follow the money? Because it's not about the equipment, it's about the skills (doh)!

My first racket was an entry-level Wilson racket costing me about $50 from the local sporting store. When that broke (after about 9 months), I upgraded to a Starvie Metheora Warrior because "everyone good was using it" in my local area. After about 50 games with this I suffered with a tennis elbow for the next year. The racket is not to blame for my tennis elbow. What is to blame is going from playing once every 2 weeks to playing 4-5 sessions a week. The 20+ different muscles in my forearm and elbow were not happy and prepared for the sudden change in intensity.

Oh well; lets get back to the basics: For beginners I firstly recommend a round cheap racket - you don't need a advanced racket used by professionals. The round racket has a larger sweet spot which will be easier for you to make clean shots with. So if you are a beginner, even though you feel like you need a intermediate or professional racket, just don't. It doesn't matter. It might even be worse for your game or even injure you. Beginner rackets are often softer, giving you a "trampoline effect" where the soft material will make it easier for you to give the ball enough power without giving it too much power. The round racket will also have a lower balance point (the opposite of top heavy), which will give less strain on your elbow muscles and improve maneuverability. A lot in padel is about moving your racket to the correct spot to make your shot, so better maneuverability is better for your muscles in the beginning.

Conclusion / TLDR;

Did you really read the whole article? Awesome! The main conclusion from this guide is, get a coach, focus on basics and get training! Also don't forget to have fun. But if you are like me, the most fun is improving and beating better and better players.