Padel scoreboard with points, games and sets
Club nights, tournaments, weekend matches
Padel is point-scored, not judged. Points run 15, 30, 40, then the game; six games win a set by two, best of three sets, tiebreak at 6–6. At deuce the golden point decides the game with no advantage. A chair umpire calls the score at professional level; club players officiate themselves.
- JudgeMate scoreboard for padel
- How Padel Competitions Work
- Padel scoring — points, games and sets, with the golden point
- Major Padel Competitions
- Padel Pioneers and Stars
- Key Padel Equipment
- Current Trends in Padel
- The History of Padel
- Related Guides
- Frequently Asked Questions About Padel & JudgeMate Scoreboard
JudgeMate scoreboard for padel
Points 15/30/40, games to 6, best of 3 sets
Tap a button to add a point. The scoreboard handles the 15/30/40 count, the golden point at deuce, the tiebreak at 6–6 and the match close at two sets. No timer to configure.
Free scoreboard, no signup
Pick padel, enter the pair names, start scoring. The scoreboard gets a shareable link and QR code spectators can open from any phone — no account needed.
Point-by-point 15/30/40
Tap for each point and the scoreboard counts 15, 30, 40, then the game, exactly as it is called on court. The current game score sits front and centre for players and spectators.
Golden point or advantage
Choose golden point or traditional advantage before the match. At 40–40 the scoreboard resolves the game the way your event plays it — one sudden-death point, or win by two.
Sets to 6, tiebreak at 6–6
A set closes at six games with a two-game margin. At 6–6 the scoreboard opens a tiebreak to 7, win by two, and records the set score when it is done.
Best of 3 with super-tiebreak
The match closes at two sets won. Turn on the super-tiebreak and a first-to-10 breaker replaces the deciding third set — handy for club nights and shorter formats.
One phone runs the match
One person scores from a phone. The spectator view updates live on any screen — a second phone, a TV or a projector at the club — from the same shareable link or QR code.
Set and game history on screen
Completed sets stay visible next to the live one. A spectator joining mid-match sees Set 1 at 6–4, Set 2 at 3–2 in progress, and the running point score without asking anyone.
Match-day polls
Open quick polls during the match — best point, player of the match, who takes the third set. Fans vote from their phones, the leaderboard moves in real time, and the archive shows what the crowd thought after every set.
How Padel Competitions Work
Padel Competition Formats
Doubles (2v2)
Doubles is padel — the mainstream game is played 2 against 2 on the enclosed 20 × 10 metre court, and the professional tour is entirely doubles. With walls in play and only ten metres of width per side, the format rewards positioning, communication and net control over raw power. The pair that takes the net and keeps it usually wins: they cut off angles, force the opponents deep against the back glass, and finish with the trademark padel shots — the bandeja and víbora overheads that keep a pair at the net without risking a full smash out of court. Games are scored to 15/30/40, six games win a set, and matches are best of three.
Singles
Singles padel is a minority format, played on a narrower court (roughly six metres wide instead of ten) so that one player can cover it. Without a partner it becomes a running game, closer to squash in its demands, and the walls make it physically punishing. Singles appears in some club competitions and exhibitions but is rare at the top level, where the tour and the audience are built around doubles. Where it is played, the scoring is the same: points to 15/30/40, games to six, sets to the best of three.
Mixed Doubles
Mixed doubles pairs one man and one woman per team and is hugely popular in club and amateur play, where most social padel is mixed by default. It adds a tactical layer, as pairs try to work the court to their strengths, and it is a staple of club leagues and league nights. The professional tour is organized into separate men's and women's draws rather than a mixed championship, but mixed events, pro-ams and exhibitions are common and draw big crowds. The scoring does not change: 15/30/40, games to six, best of three sets, golden point at deuce.
Golden Point vs. Advantage
At 40–40 padel offers two ways to settle a game. Under the golden point (punto de oro) there is no advantage: a single sudden-death point decides the game, and the receiving pair chooses which side to receive on. Adopted by the World Padel Tour in 2020 and standard on the Premier Padel and FIP circuit, the golden point speeds up matches and adds pressure to every deuce. Club and amateur play may still use traditional advantage scoring, where a pair must win two points in a row from deuce. The FIP 2026 rulebook also adds a selectable Star Point deuce format as an option, but the golden point remains the professional standard. JudgeMate lets you pick golden point or advantage before the match so the scoreboard matches your event.
How Padel Scoring and Officiating Work
Padel is objectively scored — there are no style points or judges' marks. The score itself is the result: win the rally, win the point. On the professional Premier Padel and FIP circuit a chair umpire runs each match, calling the score, watching for a double bounce, checking that serves are legal, and ruling whether a ball was still in play off the glass or dead into the mesh. At club and amateur level most matches are self-officiated: the players call their own lines and keep the score themselves.
Because padel is point-scored, JudgeMate's scoreboard does not judge anything — it reflects the score the operator enters, point by point, from 15/30/40 up through games and sets. For worked examples of deuce, the golden point and tiebreaks, see the complete padel scoring guide, and officials running a match can follow the padel referee guide.
**Serve**: The serve is underhand. The server bounces the ball once behind the service line, strikes it at or below waist height, and hits it diagonally into the opposite service box. As in tennis there are two attempts — a fault on the first serve gives a second. The served ball must bounce in the correct box first; if it then strikes the metal-mesh fence before the second bounce it is a fault, though a ball that rebounds off the back glass after bouncing is legal.
**Walls in play**: The glass and metal-mesh walls are part of the game. A ball may rebound off your own walls and be played back over the net, and after it bounces on the floor of the opponents' court it may carry on into their walls. What you may not do is hit the ball directly into the opponents' wall or fence before it has bounced on their floor — that loses the point.
**Golden point**: At 40–40 the professional game uses the golden point — one sudden-death point, no advantage, with the receiving pair choosing which side to receive on. Club play may instead use traditional advantage. JudgeMate follows whichever you select at setup, so the deuce logic on the scoreboard matches the rulebook you are playing under.
**Common faults**: A second bounce before the ball is returned, a ball hit into your own net, a serve that misses the box or strikes the fence on the full, a ball played into the opponents' wall before it bounces, a foot fault on serve, or a ball hit out over the court. Each fault ends the rally and awards the point to the other pair.
JudgeMate's live scoreboard complements on-court officiating with a digital score display that updates in real time and can be shared with spectators anywhere — on a phone, a TV or a projector at the club. It tracks the points, games and sets the operator enters and handles the golden point, tiebreak and super-tiebreak automatically; it does not call lines or officiate the match. The padel live scoreboard guide walks through setup, and you can open a live scoreboard for your next match in under a minute.
Padel scoring — points, games and sets, with the golden point
Padel scores like tennis: points count 15, 30, 40, then the game. Six games win a set with a two-game margin, and matches go to the best of three sets. At 6–6 the set is decided by a tiebreak, first to 7.
What sets padel apart is the golden point. At 40–40 there is no advantage — a single sudden-death point decides the game, and the receiving pair chooses which side to take it on. It is the standard in professional play and it changes how the tight games feel.
Generic scoreboard apps are built for timed sports with quarters and clocks. They get in the way of a point-by-point racket sport played off the walls. JudgeMate tracks every point as 15/30/40, closes games and sets on the rulebook margins, and lets you switch golden point, tiebreak and super-tiebreak on to match your event. One person runs the match from a phone; spectators follow from a shared link.
Major Padel Competitions
Professional padel is now organized under a single global tour, alongside a national-team world championship and a growing set of alternative circuits. These are the competitions shaping the sport at the top level.
Premier Padel
Premier Padel is the unified professional tour, launched in 2022 with the backing of Qatar Sports Investments and sanctioning from the FIP. After Qatar Sports Investments acquired the World Padel Tour in 2023, the two circuits merged from the 2024 season, making Premier Padel the single top tier of professional padel. The tour runs a global calendar of tournaments with separate men's and women's draws, big prize money, and international television and streaming coverage.
Premier Padel Majors
The Majors are the flagship events on the Premier Padel calendar — the tour's biggest tournaments, held in marquee cities and carrying the most ranking points and prize money. They function as padel's equivalent of tennis Grand Slams, drawing the top seeds and the largest crowds and broadcast audiences of the season. A strong run at a Major does more for a pair's ranking and profile than any other week on tour.
FIP World Padel Championship
Run by the International Padel Federation, the World Padel Championship is padel's premier national-team event. Countries send men's and women's squads to compete for a team title, with Spain and Argentina the historic powers and a widening field of nations — Italy, France, Brazil and others — closing the gap. Held at intervals rather than annually, it sits apart from the pro tour and gives the sport a country-versus-country pinnacle.
World Padel Tour (2013–2023)
The World Padel Tour was the leading professional circuit for a decade, staging the top men's and women's events and building much of padel's modern professional structure and fanbase. Qatar Sports Investments acquired it in 2023, and from the 2024 season it was absorbed into Premier Padel. The WPT no longer runs as a separate tour, but its years defined the careers of the sport's biggest stars and set the template the unified circuit inherited.
A1 Padel
A1 Padel is an alternative professional circuit that runs its own international calendar outside the Premier Padel structure, with a strong presence in Latin America and Europe. It has attracted a number of established players and offers a second competitive pathway at professional level. Its existence reflects how quickly the sport has grown — enough to sustain more than one professional tour and a deep pool of touring players.
Padel Pioneers and Stars
Padel's story runs from a walled-in court in Acapulco to a global professional tour, and the players below — inventors, pioneers and today's world number ones — trace that arc. Rankings are noted as of late 2025.
Padel Pioneers
Enrique Corcuera
Enrique Corcuera invented padel in 1969 at his home in Acapulco, Mexico. Working with a small space beside the house, he enclosed a rectangle with walls, added a net, and made the walls part of the game — the decision that separated padel from tennis and gave the sport its identity. His court, Las Palmeras, is regarded as padel's birthplace, and the layout he settled on is essentially the game still played worldwide today.
Alfonso de Hohenlohe
Alfonso de Hohenlohe, a Spanish aristocrat and friend of Corcuera, brought padel to Europe. After playing the game in Acapulco he built the first courts at the Marbella Club in Spain in 1974, where the Costa del Sol's international set adopted it quickly. From Marbella the sport spread across Spain, which became — with Argentina — one of padel's two great heartlands and the foundation of its later global boom.
Fernando Belasteguín
Fernando Belasteguín, known as Bela, is the most decorated player in padel history and the sport's defining figure of the professional era. The Argentine held the men's world number one ranking for a record stretch of roughly 16 consecutive years, an unmatched run of dominance, much of it alongside Juan Martín Díaz. Bela's longevity, competitiveness and role in growing the sport made him padel's first true global icon.
Juan Martín Díaz
Juan Martín Díaz is one of the greatest players in padel history and, for years, one half of the sport's most dominant pairing alongside Fernando Belasteguín. The two Argentines held the top of the men's game for the best part of a decade, setting the standard for partnership, consistency and shot-making that later generations measured themselves against. Díaz remains a reference point for how the modern doubles game is played.
Carolina Navarro
Carolina Navarro is a pioneer of the women's professional game and one of the most successful players in its history. The Spaniard spent years at or near the top of the women's rankings and was a central figure as women's padel built its own competitive circuit and following. Her career bridged the sport's earlier decades and its modern professional era, and she helped set the platform the current generation of champions inherited.
Current Stars
Arturo Coello
Arturo Coello is one of the dominant forces in the men's game and, with Agustín Tapia, formed the world number one pair as of late 2025. A tall, powerful Spaniard, Coello reached the top of the sport young and pairs athletic reach at the net with the touch the modern game demands. The Coello–Tapia partnership has been the pair to beat on the Premier Padel circuit.
Agustín Tapia
Agustín Tapia is an Argentine star and, alongside Arturo Coello, part of the world number one pair as of late 2025. Nicknamed El Mozart for his shot-making, Tapia combines flair, quick hands and a full range of the sport's specialist shots. His partnership with Coello has dominated the men's tour and made the pair the headline act of Premier Padel.
Alejandro Galán
Alejandro Galán is one of the top men's players in the world, a powerful and consistent Spaniard who has spent years at the sharp end of the rankings. Long paired with Juan Lebrón in a partnership that reached world number one — a pairing that has since broken up, with Lebrón now playing alongside Leandro Augsburger — Galán has continued at the top, competing with Federico Chingotto around the top of the men's game as of late 2025.
Federico Chingotto
Federico Chingotto, known as Fede, is an Argentine standout and, partnering Alejandro Galán, one of the leading men's pairs around the top of the rankings as of late 2025. Compact and quick, Chingotto is one of the game's best defenders and counter-punchers, turning long rallies off the glass into openings. His pairing with Galán is among the strongest challengers to the Coello–Tapia partnership.
Gemma Triay
Gemma Triay is one of the leading players in women's padel and, with Delfina Brea, part of the world number one women's pair as of late 2025. The Spaniard combines court coverage, tactical intelligence and a strong all-round game, and has spent years at the top of the women's rankings across different partnerships. The Triay–Brea pairing has set the pace at the front of the women's tour.
Delfina Brea
Delfina Brea is an Argentine star and, alongside Gemma Triay, half of the world number one women's pair as of late 2025. Aggressive and athletic, Brea has risen quickly to the top of the women's game, and her partnership with Triay has been the leading force on the women's Premier Padel circuit. She is one of the players defining the current era of women's padel.
Ariana Sánchez & Paula Josemaría
Ariana Sánchez and Paula Josemaría are one of the strongest women's pairs in the sport and were ranked world number two as of late 2025. The two Spaniards spent time as the top pair on tour before the current era and remain a leading force, combining Sánchez's consistency with Josemaría's power. Their rivalry with the Triay–Brea pairing is one of the defining match-ups in the women's game.
Key Padel Equipment
Padel gear is compact and relatively affordable, and the enclosed court and forgiving ball make the sport easy to start. The essentials are a racket, a pressurised ball, and court shoes suited to the surface — most beginners can rent or borrow the rest.
Padel Racket
A padel racket is solid and stringless, with a perforated face full of holes, an EVA or foam core, and a carbon-fibre or fibreglass hitting surface. It is shorter than a tennis racket and, by rule, carries a wrist strap that must be worn to stop the racket flying out of the hand. Head shape drives the feel: round rackets balance control and are friendliest for beginners, teardrop shapes split the difference, and diamond shapes concentrate power for advanced players. Leading brands include Bullpadel, Head, Nox, Adidas, Babolat, Wilson and StarVie.
Padel Ball
A padel ball is a pressurised felt ball that looks much like a tennis ball but runs at a slightly lower pressure, which gives a marginally lower bounce suited to the enclosed court and wall rebounds. Balls are supplied by brands such as Head, Wilson and Bullpadel and must meet FIP specifications for size, weight and bounce. Like tennis balls they lose pressure with play, so competitive matches use fresh balls and clubs get through them steadily.
Court & Net
A padel court is an enclosed rectangle of 20 × 10 metres, walled on all sides with a mix of glass and metal mesh that are part of the game. The net stands about 0.88 m high at the centre, rising slightly towards the posts, and divides the court into two halves each marked with service boxes. The surface is usually a sand-dressed artificial turf that gives grip and a consistent bounce. The walls — glass at the back and sides, mesh above — are what let rallies rebound and stay alive, and they define how the sport is played.
Court Shoes
Padel is played mostly on sand-dressed artificial turf, so the right shoes matter. Dedicated padel and court shoes use a herringbone or omni-style outsole that grips the surface without clogging with sand, plus lateral support for the quick side-to-side movement the enclosed court demands. Running shoes are unsuitable — they lack the lateral stability and can slip. Many players use tennis or padel-specific models from the major racket-sport brands, chosen for the surface they play on most.
Accessories & Apparel
Beyond the racket, players use overgrips to fine-tune the handle, keep a spare wrist strap to hand, and carry a racket bag built for the sport. Protective eyewear is optional but sensible in doubles, where fast exchanges happen at close range near the net. Moisture-wicking apparel, a towel and water round out a typical kit. Because the racket is stringless and the ball is inexpensive, the ongoing cost of playing padel stays low compared with most racket sports.
Current Trends in Padel
Padel is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world, and its landscape is shifting quickly — a unified professional tour, waves of investment, new courts everywhere and a widening international map. These are the trends shaping where the sport goes next.
Explosive Global Growth
Padel has grown from a two-country sport into a global one in barely a decade. Spain remains the engine, with padel courts numbering in the tens of thousands, but the fastest growth is now international. New courts are appearing in Italy, Sweden, France, the United Kingdom, the Middle East and the United States, often built into gyms, warehouses and rooftops to fit the enclosed court into urban space. The low barrier to entry — a beginner can rally within minutes — keeps pulling new players in and driving demand for places to play.
Professional Tour Unification
The biggest structural change in the sport was the unification of its professional circuit. For a decade the World Padel Tour ran the top level; then Premier Padel launched in 2022 with FIP sanctioning and Qatar Sports Investments backing. Rather than compete indefinitely, Qatar Sports Investments acquired the World Padel Tour in 2023, and from the 2024 season it was folded into Premier Padel. The result is a single global tour with bigger prize money, a coordinated calendar and far wider broadcast reach — a clear sign of the sport professionalizing.
Olympic and Multi-Sport Ambitions
Padel's growth has fuelled ambitions for the biggest stages, though the picture should be read honestly. Padel is not currently an Olympic sport and is not on the programme for Los Angeles 2028. It is, however, slated to feature at the 2027 European Games, a genuine multi-sport milestone. Any Olympic inclusion — with 2032 sometimes discussed — remains aspirational rather than confirmed. The case rests on the sport's fast global spread, an established international federation and a format that is quick and television-friendly.
Investment and Ownership
Serious money has moved into padel. The professional tour is backed by Qatar Sports Investments, the group behind major sports assets, which underwrote Premier Padel and acquired the World Padel Tour. Beyond the tour, investment has flowed into court operators, equipment brands and new team-based events, some with high-profile owners drawn from football and other sports. This capital is accelerating court construction, prize money and media coverage, and turning padel from a regional favourite into a professionally run global sport.
Court and Facility Boom
The clearest sign of padel's rise is the courts themselves. Operators are building dedicated padel clubs at pace, and because the enclosed court has a compact footprint it fits places tennis cannot — inside warehouses, on rooftops, beside gyms and in converted retail units. Indoor centres let the sport run year-round in colder climates, and multi-court venues bundle padel with cafés and social space. Court availability has become the main constraint on growth, and construction is racing to keep up with demand.
Youth and Grassroots Development
As padel matures, its base is broadening from social adult players to structured youth and grassroots programmes. Clubs are adding junior coaching, academies are opening in the sport's strongholds, and junior competition is expanding, feeding a pathway toward the professional tour. National federations are formalizing coaching and player development, and the visibility of young champions at the top of the game is drawing more juniors in — a demographic shift that matters for the sport's long-term depth.
International Expansion
Padel is no longer just a Spanish and Argentine sport. National federations sit under the International Padel Federation (FIP) across a growing number of countries, and the map keeps widening — Italy, France, the Nordics, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Brazil and the United States are all building courts, clubs and competitive scenes. The FIP World Padel Championship for national teams reflects this spread, with more nations closing the gap on the traditional powers each cycle. International growth is now the sport's main story.
Technology and Broadcast
Technology is following padel's growth. Sensor-equipped rackets and training apps let players track their game, and the unified professional tour has brought streaming and broadcast coverage to a global audience, making elite padel far easier to watch than a few years ago. At the grassroots level, live scoring platforms like JudgeMate let clubs and organizers track a match point by point and share it with spectators on any screen in real time — bringing the same live experience to a club night that the pro tour brings to television, without any specialist hardware.
The History of Padel
Invention in Acapulco (1969)
Padel was invented in 1969 by Enrique Corcuera at his home in Acapulco, Mexico. Short on space for a full tennis court, Corcuera walled in a smaller rectangle beside his house, added a net, and turned the surrounding walls into part of the game — a ball rebounding off the concrete stayed in play rather than going out.
That single decision defined the sport. Enclosing the court and making the walls playable produced longer rallies, rewarded touch and positioning over raw power, and made the game far easier to pick up than tennis. Corcuera's court in Acapulco, known as Las Palmeras, is widely regarded as the birthplace of padel, and the core layout he settled on — an enclosed rectangle with an underhand serve and walls in play — is still the game played on hundreds of thousands of courts today.
Spain and Argentina (1970s–2000s)
Padel left Mexico through two friends of Corcuera. Alfonso de Hohenlohe, a Spanish aristocrat, played the game in Acapulco and built the first courts in Europe at the Marbella Club in Spain in 1974, where the jet-set crowd of the Costa del Sol took to it quickly. Around the same time the sport reached Argentina, which would become its second heartland and produce a long line of world-class players.
For the next three decades padel grew steadily in these two countries while remaining almost unknown elsewhere. Spain built clubs by the thousand, folded padel into tennis facilities, and developed a competitive circuit; Argentina turned it into a national pastime. National federations formed, and the International Padel Federation (FIP) was established in 1991 to govern the sport and run a World Padel Championship for national teams. By the 2000s Spain and Argentina were producing the athletes who would carry padel into its global boom.
The Padel Boom (2010s–Present)
In the 2010s padel broke out of its two heartlands and became one of the fastest-growing racket sports in the world. Spain led the way — padel courts overtook many other sports facilities in number — and the game spread rapidly through Italy, Sweden, France, the Nordics, the United Kingdom, the Middle East and the United States. Clubs went up in warehouses, on rooftops and beside gyms, and the low barrier to entry did the rest: a beginner can rally within minutes.
The boom was social as much as competitive. Padel is almost always played as doubles, it is easy to organize with three friends, and the enclosed court keeps rallies alive, which makes it forgiving and fun for newcomers. Investment followed the players. Facility operators, equipment brands and, eventually, a professional tour backed by serious money turned a regional favorite into a global sport in barely a decade.
The Professional Era: WPT to Premier Padel
Professional padel took shape around the World Padel Tour (WPT), which ran from 2013 to 2023 and staged the leading circuit for the world's best pairs. In 2022 a new tour, Premier Padel, launched with the backing of Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) and sanctioning from the FIP, setting up a period of rival circuits.
The split did not last. QSI acquired the World Padel Tour in August 2023, and from the 2024 season the WPT was absorbed into Premier Padel, unifying professional padel under a single circuit run with the FIP. The unified tour brought bigger prize money, a global calendar of Majors and tour events, and far more television and streaming coverage. Alongside the pro tour, the FIP continues to run the World Padel Championship for national teams, keeping a country-versus-country title at the top of the sport.
Related Guides
How Is Padel Scored?
How padel scoring works: points 15-30-40, the golden point at 40-40, games to 6, the tiebreak at 6-6, and best-of-3 sets — explained step by step.
Read guidePadel Umpire Guide
Padel officiating: the underhand serve, wall and fence play, the golden point, line calls, faults, and running the live score at a club match.
Read guideFree Padel Scoreboard App
Free padel scoreboard: 15/30/40 scoring, golden point, 6-game sets, tiebreaks, best of 3, serve dot, live QR. Score any match from your phone, no app.
Read guideFrequently Asked Questions About Padel & JudgeMate Scoreboard
Primary Sources
- FIP — Rules of Padel — International Padel Federation (FIP)
- Premier Padel — Official Site — Premier Padel
Run your next padel match on JudgeMate
Club night, tournament or a friendly on the local court — JudgeMate gives you a live scoreboard with the rules built in. Points 15/30/40, golden point, best of three sets.
Padel is one of the fastest-growing racket sports in the world. Your next match deserves a scoreboard that knows the score.