I have a serious question. HOW ON EARTH Gonza Alfonso does not have serious sponsors?? Explain this to me. He is so so good. Especially last year and of course this year. Where is Cupra? Where is Alpine? Where are all those other brands and car renting or banks or whatever?

Also on the racket brand side? He has a partnership with one brand Duo it's called (owned by another company). Like how is this even possible? How he is not with one of the big dogs of padel rackets.

Just a white tshirt. What a shame.

I hope he gets what he deserves. Great player.

Top 4 in both men’s and women’s in the semi finals today! I’m supposed to be studying but idc I’m turning them all on and may the best team win!

I really hope stupanz pushes the golden boys since I’ve been rooting for them the last couple of tournaments. They hopefully got adequate rest too.

Watching the Milano P1 QF today and the first guy to commentate on the Triay/Brea and Ustero/Sanchez matches was terrible. He just exhaled into the mic a lot and said things of absolutely no use like “wow you don’t really wanna be broken in the first game” and “nice that shot was too good!”. Absolutely no value or knowledge of padel exhibited.

On the other hand the current woman commenting on the Tapia/Coello matches is incredible! She sounds ?English but her Spanish is great and she brings a lot of padel terms and explains the shots and strategy. I like her and the Spanish guy too, he talks a lot about building up the rally which as a beginner I don’t have a lot of insight into and appreciate.

Just wondering!

My first time was last week, ricochet off my racket. Hurt for a bit but totally fine the next day. Reminded me of my friend who has a wonky eye from a squash accident.

Now I'm wondering how common this is in padel and if I should consider protective eyewear.

How long have you been playing and how often have you been hit? Did it lead to any complications?

I've been playing padel around Amsterdam for a while now, and I'd say I'm somewhere between beginner and intermediate. Good enough to have some decent rallies, but still bad enough to embarrass myself at least once every few games.

The other day, I went for what I thought was going to be a pretty easy shot and completely missed the ball. Not even a difficult smash or anything spectacular, just a normal ball that somehow went straight past my racket. Of course, my mates made sure I heard about it for the rest of the match. I'm still feeling it in my shoulder 😂

It's one of those sports where you can feel like a pro for five minutes and then immediately look like you've never held a racket before.

What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you on a padel court? Please tell me I'm not the only one with stories like this.

I was training with ny trainer from malaga ex top4 in spain something along those lines but he was telling me to not hold continental but just slichtly to the back hand side and when i quetsioned ut he daid hes 99% procent sure that atleast 95% of pros use the slightly backhand sided continental grip snd proceded to show me fotos of stupa libaak and galan that do homd there racket backhand sided my question is is it just the foto beibg kade at the time hes holding it like that or do pros use continental or that slight adjustment to the backhand side?

I’ll go first….. so I should say I don’t play here very often, (when you see the price you can probably understand why.) This is my closest club, probably about five minutes away yet I find myself driving atleast an hour in the opposite direction to go to a more reasonably priced club.

Because the weather where I am is starting to cool a little bit, it’s looking like courts I usually play at are starting to get booked up a lot. So I was looking for an alternate venue. It’s obviously not gonna be this place.

Edit for context : this is Los Angeles, California. There’s only two clubs within 100 miles, and this is 1 of them.

Do you prefer senior padel or the modern style of padel? 🎾

I just got done watching a padel match in Youtube for the first time in my life. It looks fun. The players look kinda skinny. I'm primarily a strength athlete looking for a secondary hobby.

I'm just wondering how fit you'd need to be to compete well in padel and whether or not leg strength plays a big role. These elite guys don't have swole thighs. lol. This sport is way safer than martial arts. Plus, there's a padel club that's about to open in my local area. I'm thinking of checking it out.

Are the best padel players in need of high level fitness/leg strength? Or does that aspect of the sport peak early for athletes and it's all about skill and cunning the rest of the way?

Thank you. I'm extremely new.

Hi, it's been roughly a year since I started padel, I play on and off and I am still a beginner.

Padel is very expensive especially with coaching the amount of coaching I can get for tennis in a month that will only give me one hour of padel coaching.

Should I start playing tennis and get coaching and it will improve my padel in the long run?

FIP has released its 2026 World Padel Report, covering participation, courts and competitions.

A few highlights from the report:

• 40 million active players around the globe
• over 91.000 courts worldwide
• Padel is now played in 191 countries
• 1.11 million federation-registered players - up 30.5%

Announcement

Download: FIP World Padel Report 2026

This recent Bloomberg article sheds some light on the amount of investment that has gone into UK padel so far: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-10-09/will-padel-s-300-million-uk-bubble-burst-in-race-to-build-courts

It also says that "The stampede to build courts is fueling concern about a wave of bankruptcies".

What are your thoughts on this? It doesn't look like the performance of padel clubs is the problem (according to occupancy estimates on Playskan at least), so I wonder what their angle on this really is...

UK based.
Looking to travel to Spain/Portugal for a weekend padel camp. I don’t want a big package that includes a fancy hotel and a welcome drink by the pool!

Looking for solid coaching, some local match play, suitable for 1-2 levels. I’d rather book my own digs.

Any recommendations?

I'm just exploring new sports. There's a padel club that's about to open up in my local area. I just wanna compete without having to pay expensive martial arts fees and without high risk of injury.

It's not like I'm trying to make money as a padel player, but I'm curious to know what kind of incentives does a padel player have in reaching elite status in the sport aside from the sense of accomplishment and the trophies. Do we get famous? Do we get sponsorships? Do we get free trips to other countries to compete? Maybe we get famous by being in the cover of a popular magazine. What?

Thanks.

I recorded one of our matches with a single camera behind the court and wrote some code to track the players and the ball. This highlight video came out of it, with no manual editing.

It spots hits and bounces, picks the best rallies, and after each one shows where each player moved and where the shots landed.

Curious what you think: which stats would you actually want to see from your own matches?

Lately, I’ve been experiencing pain in both heels since I changed my footwear. I used to wear Asics, but I switched to the Lacoste AG-LT 23 Ultra. Do you think the shoes are actually the problem?

hi! has anyone experienced struggling to learn basic moves because every tutorial has difference guidance? For example, I’ve taken private lessons and am improving my forehand volley. I watch tutorials online to try to connect the dots. However, some tutorials say have a closed stance when you step forward, some say open. Some videos say to rotate your shoulders all the way back and some say you don’t need to. I’m frustrated! 😭

UPDATE: just wanna say thank you for the supportive comments and advice! gonna take a chill pill and focus on the enjoying the process :)

I see that for example that Marta Ortega finished 2019 as the #1 pair with Marta Marrero. Why does her FIP page list her best career rank as #4?

https://www.padelfip.com/player/marta-ortega-gallego/

Hi everyone,

Yeah, as you can tell from the picture, I have VERY wide feet. The widest part is 12 cm which is at the midfoot.

I am STRUGGLING to find shoes that are wide enough.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Does anyone have similar feet? If yes, what shoes do you use?

Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone! I’m looking for advice from people who have experienced shoulder dislocations, especially padel players.

I first dislocated my right shoulder around 2–3 years ago while playing padel, during an overhead smash. An MRI showed a Hill-Sachs lesion. I did physiotherapy and eventually returned to playing padel.

Unfortunately, I dislocated it again about a week ago. After seeing doctors, I’ve been told that I’ll likely need arthroscopic shoulder stabilization surgery to prevent future dislocations.

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has had this surgery:

How difficult was the procedure, and how painful was recovery?

How long did it take to return to normal daily activities?

How long before you could return to the gym and play padel or other racket sports?

Has the surgery successfully prevented further dislocations?

Looking back, are you happy you had the surgery, and would you recommend it?

My biggest concern is whether I can eventually return to playing padel and training at the gym confidently, without constantly worrying about my shoulder dislocating again.

I’d especially appreciate hearing from people who play padel, tennis, or other overhead sports. Thanks!

i’m a level 2.7 on playtomic but my smash is not great and it hinders my ability to kill games. especially when playing with a worse partner i find it very hard to carry them. usually what happens is that they see I’m fast and a good defender and stsrt playing more balls to my friend.

i think i need to just bite the bullet and go for more smashes…. maybe some training to focus on it.

or do the tennis serve for a while?
in general my pressure in shots is sometimes not strong enough, defense being considerably better than my offense, broadly speaking.

winning 70% of my games by just letting the oppnent make mistakes but that kinda stops happening at 3.0 without consistent good offense pressure.

any advice?