15 Beginner Padel Mistakes (and the Fix for Each)
Quick Answer: The five that cost the most points: standing on the service line, moving independently of your partner, smashing every lob, hitting hard from below net height, and saying nothing to each other. All five are habits rather than skills, which means you can fix them tonight without owning a single new stroke.
Every item below is visible from the other end of the court. That matters more than it sounds, because it means your crew can spot these in each other — and "you are on the service line again" from a friend is worth more than an hour of reading.
The fix comes first in each case. If you only want the list, read the headings.
Where you stand
1. Get off the service line
The mistake: you are standing around the service line, volleying balls that arrive at your shoelaces.
That band of court is no-man's-land: too far back to hit down on anything, too far forward to use the back glass. Go all the way up — two to three meters off the net — or all the way back to about a meter off the glass. If a ball catches you mid-court, bend your knees, put it deep, and then finish the journey. Where to stand in padel has the two home positions in detail.
2. Move when your partner moves
The mistake: one of you runs forward for a short ball and the other stays at the back.
One up and one back opens a diagonal corridor that nobody can cover, and your opponents will find it by accident. Imagine a four-meter rope between you: forward together, back together, sideways together. If your partner goes and you hesitate, you have not been cautious — you have made the formation worse.
3. Stand a meter off the back glass, not against it
The mistake: you are pressed into the back wall, cramped, with no room to swing.
Padel's glass is a tool, not a boundary. Give yourself a meter so a fast ball can pass you, hit the glass and come back at a height you can actually strike. On very deep balls, let it go by on purpose and take the rebound — the wall does the work, and the rebound is often more predictable than the bounce.
4. Split-step as they strike the ball
The mistake: you are flat-footed at the moment your opponent hits, then late to everything.
A small hop, landing as their racket meets the ball, is what lets you move in any direction. Do it every single point, including the ones where you think nothing is coming to you. Standing still and then sprinting is always slower than being already balanced.
What you choose to hit
5. Lob when you are below net height
The mistake: you are trying to hit winners from your ankles at the back of the court.
A ball met below net height has to climb, which means it arrives in their strike zone. So from down there your job is to change the situation, not to end it: lob it deep over their heads and take the net back. When to lob is the decision tree, and it is the highest-value habit on this page.
6. Bandeja the deep lob instead of smashing it
The mistake: you smash every ball that goes over your head, and half of them go into the glass or the net.
If the lob makes you move backward, the smash is a gamble that also drags you off the net. The controlled sliced overhead — the bandeja — keeps you at the net and keeps the rally neutral, which is worth more than a spectacular winner every fourth attempt. Save the overhead for short lobs when you are balanced underneath the ball.
7. Volley deep and low instead of trying to end it
The mistake: every volley is an attempt at a winner, and the ones from below net height keep floating back.
At the net you have two jobs: finish the balls that sit up above the net, and keep the others deep and low so nothing changes. A hard volley on a low ball climbs and comes back over your head. Deep, low, patient — then take the one that sits up.
8. Aim through the middle unless there is a gap
The mistake: you are aiming at the lines, and finding the side glass or the floor outside them.
The middle has the lowest part of the net, the shortest flight path and two opponents who have to decide whose ball it is. Corners are for balls you can hit from above net height, where the extra risk buys something. Owning the middle makes the full case without inventing a statistic.
9. Play at their feet, not at their rackets
The mistake: you keep driving the ball hard, chest-high, straight at two players standing at the net.
That is the one ball a net player wants: above the net, in front of them, with pace they can borrow. Take the pace off and put it at their ankles instead — the chiquita — and let them lift it up for you. Same swing direction, completely different point.
The walls and the serve
10. Let the ball come off the glass
The mistake: you chase every deep ball and hit it before the wall, off balance, with your body twisted.
Nothing in padel is more counter-intuitive for a tennis player, and nothing pays faster. Turn side-on, track the ball past you, and hit it after the rebound. Spend ten balls of the warm-up deliberately playing off your own back glass, and the panic disappears within a session.
11. Bounce the serve and place it
The mistake: you are tossing the ball up and hitting a tennis serve, or striking it above waist height.
A padel serve must be bounced on the floor and struck at or below waist height with a foot on the ground — that is the FIP Rules of Padel, and the serve rules guide lists the rest. Since it cannot be a power shot, make it a placement shot: aimed wide to the side glass, or at the receiver's body. The first serve you get in is worth more than the second serve you hit hard.
12. Follow your serve to the net
The mistake: you serve and stay at the back, leaving your partner alone at the net.
The serve exists to buy you the net. Serve, walk in, arrive next to your partner, and split-step as they strike the return. A crew where nobody follows their serve is giving away the strongest position on court at the start of every point they are meant to control.
The four of you
13. Call one word, early
The mistake: a ball rolls between you and your partner while you both watch it, and then you both apologize.
"Mine." One word, early enough to be information rather than commentary. The convention that the forehand takes the middle prevents arguments, but the call is what prevents the point loss, and padel communication has the small set of words worth learning.
14. Say the score before every serve
The mistake: somebody asks "what is it?" at 4–4 and the four of you produce three different answers.
There is no umpire and no scoreboard, so the server says the score out loud before every point. It takes two seconds and it removes the most tedious argument in amateur padel. If your crew keeps losing track, put the online padel scoreboard on a phone on the bench and let it hold the truth.
15. Say nothing after your partner's error except what you are doing next
The mistake: the post-mistake seminar — "you should have lobbed there" — delivered mid-game to somebody who already knows.
A pair that flinches plays worse for the next three points, and everyone in your crew can feel it happening. The protocol: acknowledge nothing, or say the next intention out loud — "I will take the middle" — and play. Analysis after the match, in the bar, where it is a conversation rather than a verdict.
Which three to fix first
Pick the top three and ignore the rest for a month. In order: get off the service line, move with your partner, and lob instead of attacking from below net height.
Those three are worth more than the other twelve combined, because they change what your opponents are allowed to do to you. When they are automatic, work down the list — and if you want to know whether any of it is landing, take the padel level test now and again in three months. Most of what separates the bands is described in the language of position and shot choice, which is exactly what this page is about. The order to work through it all is in the guide to getting better at 2v2, and if you are genuinely new, what actually happens the first time you play covers the practical part.
FAQ
What is the most common mistake in padel?
Standing in the wrong place — specifically, standing around the service line where you can neither hit down on the ball nor use the back glass. It is more costly than any technical fault because it happens on every point, not just the ones where you swing badly, and the fix requires no new skill at all.
Why do beginners lose points in padel?
Mostly to their own errors on neutral balls: hitting hard from below net height, smashing lobs that should have been controlled overheads, and going for the lines instead of the middle. Padel's walls give power back, so the pair that gives away fewer free points usually wins, which makes error discipline the fastest available improvement.
Should beginners smash in padel?
Only on short lobs when you are balanced underneath the ball. On deeper lobs the smash is low-percentage and drags you away from the net, which is the position you were trying to protect. Learning to choose a controlled sliced overhead instead is one of the clearest markers of a player leaving beginner level.
What should a beginner practice first in padel?
Playing the ball off the back glass, and the serve. The glass is the part of padel that exists nowhere else and the part that decides whether deep balls are a problem, and ten balls in every warm-up is enough to start. The serve is next because it is entirely under your control and it is a placement shot rather than a power shot.
How long does it take to stop being a beginner at padel?
A handful of sessions to stop feeling lost, and roughly a season of weekly play to stop making the mistakes on this page reliably. The players who get there fastest are not the fittest ones — they are the ones who worked on one habit at a time and had somebody willing to tell them when they drifted back onto the service line.