Padel serving rules.

The single most important thing to know about the padel serve is that it must be underhand. This is the defining difference between padel and tennis, and it shapes everything about how a padel point begins. There is no overhead power serve, no flat bomb down the T, and no kick serve bouncing above the receiver's head. Every padel serve starts low, starts slow, and starts with a bounce.

The underhand serve rule exists because padel is played on a smaller, enclosed court with glass walls and wire fencing. An overhead serve at full power would be nearly unreturnable in such a confined space. By requiring an underhand serve, the rules ensure that the return of serve is always a realistic shot, and that the rally — not the serve — is the centrepiece of every point.

For players coming from tennis, this is the biggest adjustment. You cannot use your serve as an offensive weapon in the same way. Instead, the padel serve is a placement tool — you use it to set up favourable positioning and to force the receiver into a difficult first shot, rather than to win the point outright. A well-placed padel serve that kicks off the back glass awkwardly is far more valuable than a hard serve that sits up at a comfortable height.

The server must stand behind the service line, between the centre line and the side wall or fence. This is different from tennis, where you serve from behind the baseline. In padel, the service line is positioned closer to the net than the back wall, creating a serving zone that is well inside the court.

• — Both feet must be behind the service line at the moment the ball is struck. Neither foot can touch or cross the service line before contact.
• — The server must stand between the centre line and the side wall (or fence) on the appropriate side — right side for deuce points, left side for advantage points.
• — At least one foot must be in contact with the ground at the moment of the serve. Jump serves are not permitted.
• — The server alternates between the right and left service positions on each point, starting from the right side at the beginning of each service game.

The serving position in padel feels much closer to the action than in tennis. Because you are standing well inside the court (not at the baseline against the back wall), the distance to the net is shorter, and the geometry of the serve is quite different. You are closer to the net but hitting with less power, which means placement and angle become your primary tools.

The padel serve motion has three mandatory steps that must happen in order. Get any of them wrong and the serve is a fault.

• — Bounce the ball on the ground on the server's side of the court. The ball must bounce once before being struck — you cannot hit the ball out of the air or off a toss.
• — Strike the ball at or below waist height. The paddle must contact the ball at a point that is at or below the server's waist at the moment of impact.
• — Use an underhand motion. The paddle must travel in an upward arc. No sidearm, no flat drive, and certainly no overhead motion.

The bounce requirement is what makes the padel serve unique. In tennis, you toss the ball up and hit it out of the air. In padel, you bounce the ball on the ground and hit it on the way up (or at the peak of the bounce). This naturally limits the height at which you can contact the ball, which is why the waist-height rule exists as a secondary safeguard — the bounce already makes an above-waist serve nearly impossible with a standard padel ball.

Most experienced padel players develop a rhythmic bounce-and-hit motion that looks effortless. The key is to bounce the ball at a consistent spot — slightly in front of and to the hitting side of your body — and to meet it cleanly with a compact underhand swing. Unlike tennis, where the serve is often the most technically complex stroke in the game, the padel serve is mechanically one of the simplest. The difficulty is in the placement, not the motion.

The serve must travel diagonally over the net and land inside the opposite service box. This is the same diagonal requirement as tennis — from the right service position, you serve into the opponent's left service box (from their perspective), and vice versa.

• — The ball must clear the net completely. A serve that hits the net and drops back on the server's side is a fault.
• — The ball must bounce inside the correct diagonal service box before touching any wall, glass, or fence. The floor bounce comes first — always.
• — The service box boundaries include the service line, the centre line, the side wall line, and the back service line. A ball touching any of these lines is in.
• — If the ball bounces in the correct box and then hits the back glass, it is a legal serve and the rally continues. If it bounces in the box and then hits the wire fence or mesh, it is a fault.

That last point is crucial and catches many new padel players off guard. The back glass and the wire fence are treated differently. After a legal bounce in the service box, the ball can come off the glass and still be in play — the receiver can play the ball off the glass just as in any rally. But if the ball bounces in the box and then hits the wire mesh or fence (the taller structure above or around the glass), the serve is a fault. This distinction exists because the mesh kills the ball's momentum in an unpredictable way that would make the return unfair.

This is what makes padel unlike any other racket sport. Once the serve bounces legally in the service box, the glass walls behind and beside the receiver become part of the playing field. The ball can bounce off the glass, and the receiver can play it off the glass — just as in any rally point.

• — After the serve bounces on the floor of the service box, it can hit the back glass wall. The receiver can let it bounce off the glass and play it on the rebound. This is normal padel.
• — The ball must always bounce on the floor first before hitting a wall. If the serve somehow hits a wall directly without bouncing on the floor of the service box first, it is a fault.
• — The wire fence and mesh are different from the glass. If the serve bounces in the box and then hits the wire fence or mesh, it is a fault — even though hitting the glass after a bounce is legal.
• — During the rally after the serve, all walls and glass are in play as normal. The fence/mesh restriction applies only to the serve itself.

Understanding how the walls interact with the serve is essential for both servers and receivers. A clever server will aim the serve so that it kicks off the back glass at an awkward angle, forcing the receiver to play a difficult return off the wall. The receiver, in turn, needs to read the angle of the bounce and position themselves to play the ball either before or after it hits the glass. This wall interplay is what gives padel its distinctive character and is one of the main reasons the sport is growing so rapidly worldwide.

Padel gives you one serve per point. There is no second serve. If your serve is a fault — it hits the net, lands outside the service box, hits the mesh after bouncing, or violates any of the motion rules — the point goes to the receiving team immediately.

This is a significant difference from tennis, which gives two serves per point. In padel, every serve must be treated as if it is your only chance, because it is. There is no opportunity to blast a risky first serve and follow up with a safer second serve. Every serve needs to be consistent enough to go in, while still being placed well enough to set up the point.

Historical note: before approximately 2020, some regional padel tournaments and local club rules allowed two serves, borrowing the convention from tennis. This was never the international standard, and the International Padel Federation (FIP) and World Padel Tour (WPT) rules have consistently enforced a single serve. As padel has professionalised and the rulebook has been standardised globally, the one-serve rule is now universal.

The practical effect of the one-serve rule is that padel serves tend to be more conservative than tennis serves. You rarely see a padel player go for an aggressive, high-risk serve because the cost of missing is too high. Instead, the best servers focus on placement — targeting the receiver's body, the back glass angle, or the wide service box corner — to create an advantage without risking a fault.

A let serve in padel occurs when the ball clips the top of the net cord and still lands legally in the correct diagonal service box. When this happens, the serve is replayed with no penalty.

• — Ball clips net and lands in the correct service box = let, replay the serve.
• — Ball clips net and then hits the wire fence or mesh (even if it landed in the box first) = fault, not a let.
• — Ball clips net and lands outside the correct service box = fault.
• — Ball clips net and does not clear the net = fault.
• — There is no limit to the number of consecutive lets.

The wire fence distinction is the most important detail here. In tennis, a let serve simply needs to clip the net and land in the service box. In padel, the let also cannot hit the fence or mesh after the bounce. This is because the mesh already makes the serve a fault under normal circumstances — a let does not override that rule, it only replays the serve if the outcome would have been legal except for the net cord contact.

In recreational play, let serves are called on the honour system. If you hear or see the ball clip the net tape, call the let and replay. In professional padel, the umpire makes the call. Let serves are relatively uncommon in padel because the serve is hit at a lower trajectory than in tennis, meaning the ball is less likely to catch the net cord.

Padel is almost exclusively a doubles sport, so understanding the doubles service rotation is essential. The rotation works identically to tennis doubles — all four players take turns serving in a fixed order.

• — At the start of each set, each team decides which player serves first. The order then alternates: Team A player 1 serves game 1, Team B player 1 serves game 2, Team A player 2 serves game 3, Team B player 2 serves game 4, and the cycle repeats.
• — The serving order is fixed for the entire set. Teams can change their order at the start of a new set.
• — The server alternates between the right (deuce) and left (ad) service positions on each point within a game, starting from the right.
• — The receiver's partner can stand anywhere on the court. There are no restrictions on the non-receiving player's position.
• — The receiving team decides which player receives from the deuce side and which from the ad side. This is fixed for the set.

A common padel strategy is for teams to position their stronger player on the left (ad) side of the court, as this player will receive serve on all advantage points — the pressure points that decide games. The server's partner typically stands at the net on the opposite side from the server, ready to intercept weak returns with a volley.

Because padel uses tennis scoring (15, 30, 40, deuce, advantage), the flow of a padel service game feels very similar to tennis. The key difference is that the single-serve rule makes holding serve somewhat harder in padel than in tennis, where the server gets two chances. Breaks of serve are more common in padel, which contributes to the sport's reputation for close, competitive matches.

A quick-reference checklist of everything that constitutes a fault on the padel serve. Remember: there is no second serve, so any fault costs you the point.

• — Striking the ball above waist height.
• — Using an overhand or sidearm motion instead of underhand.
• — Not bouncing the ball before striking it.
• — Foot touching or crossing the service line before contact.
• — Foot outside the imaginary extension of the centre line or side wall.
• — Both feet off the ground at the moment of contact.
• — The ball hitting the net and not crossing to the other side.
• — The ball landing outside the correct diagonal service box.
• — The ball hitting the wire fence or mesh after bouncing in the service box.
• — The ball hitting any wall or glass before bouncing on the floor of the service box.
• — Serving from the wrong side (deuce instead of ad, or vice versa).
• — The server bouncing the ball and then not striking it (the ball must be played once the service motion begins).