PadelSagePadel looks like a mix of tennis and squash, and that's roughly what it is. You play in pairs on an enclosed court, the ball can bounce off the glass and mesh walls, and the scoring follows tennis almost exactly. Once you know five things — the court, the score, the serve, the wall play, and the bounce limit — you can follow or play a match without hesitation.
The court
A padel court measures 20 metres long by 10 metres wide, divided by a net into two 10x10 metre halves. The back and side walls are a mix of glass and mesh, usually 3 to 4 metres high. There's a service line on each side, 3 metres from the net, which splits each half into a forecourt and a backcourt used to mark where serves must land. Unlike tennis, the ball is allowed to hit the walls during play — that's the part most new players need to unlearn first.
Scoring
The point scoring is identical to tennis: 0 (love), 15, 30, 40, and game. If both teams reach 40, it's deuce, and you need to win by two clear points (advantage, then game). Games are grouped into sets, and a set is won by the first team to reach 6 games with a two-game lead, or by winning a tiebreak at 6-6. Matches are usually best of three sets. The only common variation you'll encounter is "golden point" at deuce, where the next point wins the game outright instead of playing advantages — many clubs and casual matches use this to speed things up, so check before you start.
Serving
The serve in padel is underarm, not overhand like tennis. The ball must bounce on the ground first, and you strike it at or below waist height. You drop the ball yourself — no overhead toss — and hit it diagonally into the opponent's service box, which must clear the net and land beyond the service line in their forecourt. Serves alternate between the right and left half of the court after each point, same as tennis. You get one fault tolerance: a let serve (one that clips the net but still lands correctly) is replayed, but a serve that lands outside the correct diagonal box, hits your own team's side, or is struck above waist height is a fault. Two faults in a row lose the point.
Glass and wall play
This is padel's signature feature. After the ball bounces once on the ground in play, it can continue on to hit the back or side walls (glass or mesh) and remain in play, as long as the receiving player still hits it before a second bounce. The wall can only be used after the ground bounce — if the ball hits the wall before bouncing on the court, it's out. Hitting the ball into your opponent's walls is also legal and is in fact one of the main offensive tactics in padel: a ball that comes off the back glass at an awkward angle is hard to return cleanly.
The two-bounce rule
A rally stays alive as long as the ball bounces no more than once on the ground before being returned. If the ball touches the ground twice before a player makes contact, the point goes to the other team — wall contact doesn't count as a "bounce" for this rule, only contact with the playing surface does. This is the rule that catches out tennis players the most: in padel you're allowed (and often expected) to let the ball bounce, then play it off the back wall, rather than volleying everything on the way through.
Put these five rules together and you have enough to walk onto a court for the first time and play a sensible, rule-correct match. The tactics — when to volley at the net, how to use the glass to your advantage, how to construct a point with your partner — come with time on court, but the rules themselves are simple enough to learn in one read.