Padel Glossary

The point played after deuce. Win it and you take the game; lose it and the score returns to deuce. Advantage is the traditional way to close a game and is one of the three deuce formats the FIP rulebook offers. Played uncapped, it goes on until one pair wins two points in a row; the professional tours cap it at two advantages and then play the Star Point.

A social format where partners rotate every round and each player collects points individually. Everyone plays with and against most of the field, and the ranking at the end is personal rather than by pair. The FIP Rules of Padel do not cover it, so the organizer sets the points per round and the number of courts before the first round.

The shot played off a ball that has bounced and come back off the glass. Instead of retreating, the player lets the wall do the work, waits for the rebound and drives the ball back down the court. It is legal because the walls are in play once the ball has bounced on the floor of your side.

The defensive overhead that keeps a pair at the net. Struck with slice once the ball has dropped to about eye level, it sends the ball deep and low without the risk of a full smash, so the hitters hold their position instead of being pushed back. The name means "tray", after the flat path of the racket.

A free pass into the next round when a draw has fewer pairs than slots. Seeded pairs normally receive them, so the bracket fills to a power of two. In a JudgeMate knockout draw the byes are placed automatically when you generate the rounds.

A soft, low ball played from the back of the court into the feet of the pair at the net. It buys time and forces a rising volley rather than an attack.

A shot hit deliberately into your own wall, usually the back glass, so that the ball rebounds over the net into the opponents' court. The FIP rules allow it: a return may strike your own wall first, provided the ball then lands on the other side.

A padel court measures 20 metres by 10 metres and is enclosed. Each end has a 4 m enclosure: 3 m of wall, glass or another solid material, with 1 m of metal mesh on top. Along the sides the FIP allows two layouts, either stepped wall sections (3 m high and 2 m long, then 2 m high and 2 m long) or a single 3 m by 4 m wall at each end, and metal mesh fills the rest of the perimeter. Every surface is in play once the ball has bounced on the floor. The court is almost as wide as a tennis doubles court (10 m against 10.97 m) but 3.77 m shorter, so its 200 m² is about three-quarters of a doubles court.

The drop shot: a short, softly played ball that dies just over the net. It works best against a pair pinned at the back by a deep bandeja, and it is the shot most often given away by a change in swing speed.

The score at 40–40. What happens next depends on which of the FIP's three deuce formats the event picked before the match: two points in a row (advantage), two advantages and then one deciding point (Star Point, the professional format since 1 January 2026), or a single deciding point straight away (golden point).

A soft shot played very close to the net, so the ball drops just over it on the opponents' side and barely bounces. The name means "sleepy": the ball dies almost where it lands.

The ball may bounce only once on the floor of your side before you return it. Wall contacts do not count as bounces, so a ball that lands, hits the glass and comes back is still live; a second bounce on the floor ends the point.

A ball that touches two walls after bouncing, typically back glass then side glass. The double rebound kills pace and changes the angle, so returning it is more about reading the geometry than hitting hard.

The bracket or table that decides who plays whom. In padel it can be a knockout, a round robin, groups feeding a knockout, or a rotating americano. In JudgeMate the draw is generated from the confirmed entries, and the match sheets, courts and standings all hang off it.

A pair on the start list. In doubles formats the entry, not the individual player, is what the draw moves around: it carries the team name, both players and any seeding. JudgeMate reads a row typed with a single name as the pair's own name. If a pair is left with only one player, the organizer sees a warning on that entry and decides how to complete it; nothing is deleted automatically.

The International Padel Federation, founded in 1991, which publishes the Rules of Padel and sanctions international competition. National federations adopt its rulebook and add local competition regulations on top.

A serving error where the server touches or crosses the service line, or the centre line extension, before striking the ball. It is judged the same way as any other service fault: first serve lost, second serve means the point.

The hook: an overhead played across the body when the lob has gone behind the shoulder, usually on the backhand side. It is a recovery shot rather than a weapon — the aim is to stay at the net rather than to win the point outright.

The transparent back and part-side panels of the court. Once the ball has bounced on the floor, the glass is in play for both the defending and the attacking pair. A shot that hits the opponents' glass on the full, before bouncing on their floor, loses the point. Your own glass is different: you may play the ball into it, and the shot is good if the ball then crosses the net and lands in the opponents' court.

The lob. A good globo lifts the opposing pair off the net and turns defence into attack; a short one hands over a smash.

At 40–40 a single point decides the game, and the receiving pair chooses which side takes it. It was the professional standard from 2020 until the end of 2025 — it is not any more: since 1 January 2026 the FIP circuits play the Star Point instead. The golden point survives as one of the three deuce formats a club, league or national federation may select. It settles the game with the first point played at deuce, which makes it the shortest of the three. It is a preset on the JudgeMate padel scoreboard; see the padel scoreboard guide.

Pairs first play a group table, then the best of each group meet in a bracket. It guarantees every pair several matches and still ends with a final. JudgeMate supports one to four groups. With two or four groups, one or two pairs go through from each; with three, the group winners are joined by the best runner-up, or the top two of each group by the two best third-placed pairs; a single group sends its top 2, 4 or 8 into the knockout. The group stage closes in one step.

A single-elimination bracket: lose once and you are out. It needs the fewest matches of any format, n − 1 for n pairs, so 15 for a draw of 16. To give every pair more than one match, put a group stage in front of it.

A serve that touches the net and still lands in the correct service box is replayed. A let is not a fault, so the server keeps the same serve.

The metal mesh fence around the court. It plays differently from glass: the rebound off the mesh is dead and unpredictable.

An americano variant where each round pairs players by the current standings: leaders meet leaders, and the bottom of the table plays its own bracket. It keeps matches competitive as the evening goes on, at the cost of a fixed schedule you can print in advance.

The net is 0.88 metres high at the centre and 0.92 metres at the posts. The dip in the middle is what makes cross-court angles and the chiquita playable.

A doubles racket sport played on an enclosed 20 by 10 metre court with a solid, stringless racket and an underarm serve. It borrows tennis scoring and adds the walls, which is why rallies are longer and placement beats power.

In americano and mexicano a round is played to a fixed number of points instead of games, typically 16, 21, 24 or 32. Every point counts towards the personal ranking, so the target number is really a clock: it decides how long the evening runs.

A smash that, after its bounce, sends the ball out of the court over the side enclosure. Sources explain the name in different ways. The opponents may chase it outside only on a court built for out-of-court play, with two access points on each side and a clear safety area at least 3 m wide, 4 m long and 3 m high. There, a ball that leaves over a side wall or through a door stays live until its second bounce; on any other court the point is over.

A smash that, after its bounce, sends the ball out over the higher 4 m part of the enclosure; as with the por 3, sources describe it differently. If the ball leaves over the end wall, the pair on whose side it bounced loses the point at once, even on a court that allows out-of-court play, so nobody can play it back.

The professional circuit backed by FIP, launched in 2022, which became the main tour after World Padel Tour wound down. Its matches are best of three sets, and since the Riyadh P1 of February 2026 it has used the Star Point at deuce.

At sanctioned events a chair umpire runs the match from beside the net and calls the score after every point. Most club and league padel is self-officiated: the players call their own side, and the organizer only steps in for a dispute.

Every pair plays every other pair, and the table decides the winner. Of the common formats it uses the most court time: n pairs play n(n−1)/2 matches, so six pairs need 15 and eight pairs need 28.

An overhead hit with heavy topspin so the ball kicks high off the floor and the glass. It is used to push a pair back rather than to end the point, and it sits between the bandeja and the flat smash in risk.

Playing the ball from outside the court. It is allowed only on a court built for it: two access points on each side and a clear safety area beyond them, at least 3 m wide, 4 m long and 3 m high. There a player may run out, reach the ball before its second bounce and play it back. On a court without that area, a ball that leaves the court after its bounce ends the point.

Ranking the strongest entries so they are placed apart in the draw and cannot meet in the first round. In JudgeMate you set a seed number on each entry and the bracket is generated around it.

The serve is underarm. The server bounces the ball once behind the service line and strikes it at or below waist height into the diagonal service box. Two attempts are allowed, and a serve that lands correctly and then hits the mesh is a fault, while one that hits the glass stays in play.

The area between the net and the service line on each side of the centre line. A serve must land in the box diagonally opposite the server before any wall contact counts.

A set goes to six games with a two-game margin. At 6–6 a tie-break decides it, and a match is normally best of three sets.

The table that ranks pairs or players during an event. In group and round robin play JudgeMate ranks pairs by match points (by default 2 for a win and 1 for a loss), then head-to-head, then set ratio and then points ratio, each counted as won divided by lost. In americano it adds up each player's points across the rounds. JudgeMate recalculates it from confirmed results, so it moves as the evening runs.

The deuce format of professional padel since 1 January 2026, approved unanimously by the FIP General Assembly in Acapulco on 28 November 2025. From the first deuce a pair may take advantage twice; if both advantages are lost, the next point is a single deciding point that wins the game, with the receiving pair choosing which side takes it. That caps a game at five points after the first deuce — advantage, deuce, advantage, deuce, deciding point — where classic advantage has no cap at all. It is played across Premier Padel, the CUPRA FIP Tour, FIP Promises and the amateur FIP Beyond. On a JudgeMate board: there is no Star Point preset — run the match in advantage mode, which tracks the two advantages exactly, and at the third deuce tap the winning pair twice, because the board still wants a two-point gap. The padel scoreboard guide walks through it.

A first-to-ten tie-break, win by two, played instead of a full deciding set. The FIP rules list it as one of the alternative formats for the third set, and when a draw has to finish by a fixed hour it saves the court time of a whole set.

Americano with fixed pairs: partners stay together for the whole event and each round is still played to a points target. It suits pairs who signed up together but want the pace and the mixing of an americano schedule.

Played at 6–6 in a set, first to seven points with a two-point margin. Serve changes after the first point and then every two points, and pairs change ends every six points.

The viper: an overhead hit with heavy side slice, taken further towards the side wall than a bandeja and aimed to skid low off the glass. More aggressive than a bandeja and less risky than a flat smash.

The volley, played before the ball bounces, usually from the net. A volley that sits up short invites a lob over the pair at the net.

A match awarded because one pair does not appear or withdraws. The result still has to be recorded so the table and the bracket stay consistent — in JudgeMate you confirm it like any other result.