Padel Glossary: Every Term From Bandeja to Víbora
Quick Answer: Padel's vocabulary is mostly Spanish. The four you hear first: bandeja (a sliced, controlled overhead), víbora (its faster, spinnier cousin), chiquita (a soft ball into the net player's feet) and globo (the lob). Below are around sixty terms, grouped by shots, court, scoring, formats and culture.
Padel is played in Spanish even when nobody on court speaks it. That is a historical accident rather than an affectation: the sport was invented in Acapulco in 1969 and grew up in Spain and Argentina, so its shots were named before it reached anywhere English-speaking, and the names stuck.
What follows is one tight definition per term, with a link to the rule or the tactic behind it where there is one worth reading. If you are new to all of it, the plain-English guide to padel rules is the place to start instead.
The shots
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Bandeja | Literally "tray". A sliced, controlled overhead struck at head height with an open racket face and a swing that cuts across the ball. It is not a winner — its job is to keep the ball deep and keep you at the net. |
| Víbora | "Viper". The bandeja's aggressive relative: more side-spin, a whippier action, hit flatter and towards the side glass so the ball skids away instead of sitting up. |
| Remate | The smash. Straight power, usually off a short lob. |
| Kick smash | A smash hit with heavy topspin so the ball kicks up off the back glass and leaves the court over the fence — an attempt to end the point outright rather than continue the rally. |
| Por tres (x3) | The shot played from outside the court: you go out through the side opening and return the ball around the net post. Legal wherever the court's safety area permits out-of-court play. |
| Por cuatro (x4) | The same idea taken further, returning the ball from outside the cage over the fence rather than around the post. Terminology varies between clubs; both terms describe playing back in from the run-off area. |
| Globo | The lob. Padel's most underrated shot, because the net is low and the court is short. |
| Chiquita | "Little one". A soft, low ball from the back of the court into the feet of a net player, designed to force them to volley upwards. |
| Bajada | The ball you play after it has rebounded off your own back glass, taken as it drops. The standard route from defense back into attack. |
| Contrapared | Deliberately hitting the ball into your own wall so that it goes over the net. Legal, and occasionally the only shot available. |
| Doble pared | A ball that touches two walls — usually back then side — on the same rebound. Still in play, still horrible. |
| Gancho | A hooking overhead played when the ball has got behind you and there is no time to turn and set up. |
| Dejada | The drop shot. |
| Volea | The volley. |
| Saque / resto | Serve and return. The padel serve is underhand, struck after a bounce at or below the waist. |
The court and the cage
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| The cage | Informal name for the whole enclosure — glass plus mesh. Its inside surfaces count as part of the court, which is why the ball keeps coming back. |
| Cristal (glass) | The wall panels, 3 m high at the ends. A clean, predictable rebound, and the reason padel rallies last. |
| Malla (mesh, fence) | The metal fencing above and beside the glass. Unpredictable rebound, and the rules treat it differently from glass on the serve — see can the ball hit the fence. |
| Bastidor (the frame) | The metal frame holding the mesh panels. Counted as fence in its entirety. |
| Service line | Runs parallel to the net, 6.95 m from it. You serve from behind it, not from a baseline. |
| Central service line | Splits the area between net and service line into the two service boxes, and extends at least 20 cm past the service line so the server can see it. |
| Service box | Roughly 5 m wide by 6.95 m deep. The lines count as good. |
| The corner | Where a wall meets the floor. A ball that dies in the join is a correct return and effectively unplayable — one of the twelve arguments every crew has. |
| Net posts | Maximum 1.05 m tall. Touching them while the ball is in play loses the point. |
| Puerta (the opening) | The access gap in the side of the cage. Also the door you go out of to play a por tres. |
| Safety area | The space outside the court that makes out-of-court play legal: at least 3 m wide and 4 m long, minimum 3 m high. Many club courts do not have it. |
| Free height | The clear space above the court — minimum 6 m, with 8 m suggested for new builds. Full measurements are in padel court dimensions. |
Scoring and rules
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Love | Zero. Inherited from tennis along with the rest of the padel scoring ladder. |
| Deuce | 40-40. |
| Advantage | The classic deuce option: win two points in a row to take the game. Unbounded in length. |
| Golden point | Deuce settled by a single sudden-death rally, with the receiving pair choosing which side receives. The golden point is what most amateur groups play. |
| Star Point | The official 2026 professional format: deuce, advantage, deuce, advantage, and if still level, a third deuce decided by one point. Which one your group should pick is a real decision. |
| Tie-break | Played at 6-6: first to 7 points by two, one serve then two each, ends every six points, set recorded 7-6. Details in padel tie-break rules. |
| Super tie-break | A first-to-10-by-two game replacing a deciding third set, where announced in advance. Common in amateur competition and in shorter match formats. |
| Mini set | A set to four games by a margin of two, with a tie-break at 4-4. |
| Order of service | The fixed rotation of four servers, one game each. Who serves when, and which side is the most-argued piece of amateur padel. |
| Let | A replayed point, with no penalty to anyone. Every case is listed in what is a let in padel. |
| Net (on the serve) | A serve that touches the net or a post and still lands in the correct box. Replayed. |
| Fault | An invalid serve. The full list of ways to produce one is in padel serve rules. |
| Double fault | Two faults in a row. Point lost. |
| Foot fault | Touching the service line, or crossing the imaginary extension of the central line, before you strike the serve. |
| Break / hold | Winning a game against the serve, or keeping your own. Both are ordinary in padel, because the serve is not a weapon. |
| Hindrance (interference) | Putting an opponent off during their shot. A let if involuntary; the point goes to them if it was deliberate. |
| Wrist cord | The strap on the racket handle. Its use is obligatory under the FIP rules, and breaking it or dropping the racket loses the point on the spot. |
Formats you will hear named
These are group and event formats rather than rules, and none of them changes how a point is played.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Americano | Everyone partners everyone once and points are counted per player rather than per pair — a party format that needs eight or more to breathe. Americano rules and setup. |
| Mexicano | The same shape, except each round pairs players by their live standings, so the format self-balances. Mexicano rules. |
| Mixicano | The mixed-gender variant, pairing one man and one woman per team each round. |
| Team Americano | Fixed pairs rotating through every other pair. |
| King of the court | Winners advance towards the "king" end, losers rotate down. How the rotations work. |
| Box league | Small groups playing round robins, with promotion and relegation between boxes each cycle. Box league mechanics. |
| Ladder league | A ranked list you climb by challenging the players above you. Ladder league rules. |
| Round robin | Everyone plays everyone. Round robin schedules. |
| Winner stays on | One-court rotation where the winning pair keeps the court. Winner stays on. |
Worth saying plainly, because the search results rarely do: these are formats for a crowd. Americano, mexicano and king of the court exist to keep eight, twelve or sixteen people busy and sociable across several courts. If you are four friends on one court every Thursday, none of them is what you want — you want 2v2, fair pairings and a record that survives the week. For a one-night rotation with an awkward player count, the padel rotation planner builds the fixtures; for scoring the matches themselves, the online padel scoreboard does the job without pretending to be a tournament engine.
Levels, gear and slang
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pala | The racket. Solid, perforated, no strings, maximum total length 45.5 cm. |
| Pelota | The ball. Looks like a tennis ball, a fraction less lively. |
| Pareja | Your pair — both the partnership and the person. Choosing one well matters more than most people admit: fair teams every time. |
| Drive side / revés side | The two halves of the court, named from a right-hander's view: the forehand ("drive") side and the backhand ("revés") side. Most pairs fix who plays which and stop discussing it. |
| Level 0–7 | The de facto amateur scale used by booking platforms, where 7 is professional. What the bands actually mean, and a twelve-question level test if you want a number. |
| Reliability | A confidence figure some platforms attach to your level: low reliability means your rating moves in big jumps. Why it matters more than the level. |
| Sandbagging | Understating your level, deliberately or by neglect. Why players do it and how groups fix it. |
| Golden point receiver's choice | On a sudden-death point the receiving pair picks which side receives — and may not swap positions to arrange it. |
| Vamos | What everyone shouts. Universal, untranslatable, mandatory. |
| Padelista | A padel player. |
| Pista | The court. You will see it on every booking screen in Spain before you see the word "court". |
The five terms that actually change how you play
If you only carry a handful out of this page, carry these.
- Bandeja — because it is the shot that stops you losing the net, and beginners smash instead.
- Chiquita — because it is the answer to two opponents standing at the net, and it is a soft shot in a sport people expect to be hard.
- Bajada — because until you trust your own back glass, half the court is unavailable to you.
- Globo — because a low net and a short court make the lob a weapon, not a concession.
- Golden point — because it is the one rule your group has to agree out loud before the first serve.
New to all of this? What actually happens the first time you play padel walks through the first session, and if you are arriving from tennis, what transfers and what betrays you is the honest inventory. Once the vocabulary is in place, the rest of the arguing is about the score — which, three weeks in, is the only argument left.
FAQ
What does bandeja mean in padel?
Bandeja means "tray" in Spanish, and it describes both the shot and the racket action: a sliced overhead struck around head height with an open face, swinging across the ball rather than down through it. It is a defensive-attacking shot whose purpose is to keep the ball deep and keep you at the net, rather than to win the point.
What is the difference between a bandeja and a víbora?
Both are sliced overheads played from around head height, but the víbora is the more aggressive version: hit with more side-spin and a whippier action, flatter and usually towards the side glass, so the ball skids low instead of sitting up. A bandeja buys you time; a víbora tries to take it away from your opponents.
What is a chiquita in padel?
A chiquita is a soft, low ball played from the back of the court into the feet of an opponent at the net. Its purpose is to make them volley upwards from below net height, which gives you a ball you can attack. It is the standard reply to two players who have taken the net and will not leave it.
Why are padel terms in Spanish?
Because the sport was invented in Mexico in 1969 and developed in Spain and Argentina before it reached the English-speaking world. Its shots and its slang were named in Spanish decades before anyone needed English words for them, and the names traveled with the sport rather than being translated.
What does x3 or por tres mean in padel?
Por tres — often written x3 — is the shot played from outside the court: you leave through the side opening and return the ball around the net post from the run-off area. It is legal only where the court has the required safety area outside it, which many club courts do not, so check before you attempt it.