Padel Net Height and Court Markings: The Rules Most Players Get Wrong

Most padel confusion doesn't come from the walls — players adapt to those fast. It comes from the net and court markings, which look tennis-adjacent but follow a distinct rulebook. Getting these wrong doesn't just cost you points on a technicality; it changes how you should actually be positioning and serving.

Net height — lower than tennis, and it matters

A regulation padel net sits 88cm (34.6") at the posts and 88cm at the center — notably, padel nets don't dip in the middle the way tennis nets do; the drop is minimal by design. Compare that to a tennis net at 91.4cm (36") at the posts, dropping to 91.4cm... actually tennis drops to 3ft/91.4cm at posts and 3ft at center is wrong — the real comparison that matters here: padel's net sits meaningfully lower than most players expect coming from tennis, which changes shot selection near the net. Low volleys and net-skimming shots that would clip a tennis net clear a padel net far more often. If you're used to tennis and keep finding your low volleys sailing through when you expected a net error, this is why — recalibrate your margin, not your technique.

Service boxes and the service line

The service line sits 6.95m from the net, dividing each side into two service boxes. Padel serves must be underarm, bounced first (the ball must bounce once before contact — no tennis-style overhead toss-and-strike), and struck below waist height, landing diagonally in the opposite service box, same as tennis' diagonal serve pattern. The critical rule most new players miss: the serve must be hit from behind the service line, and the server's back foot must stay behind that line and inside the width of the court until contact. Stepping on or over the line during the serve motion is a fault, even if the serve itself lands in.

The glass and mesh boundary — where it actually starts

Regulation courts use glass walls at the back (typically extending the full width) and a combination of glass and metal mesh on the sides, with the glass portion starting from the back corners. The exact height requirements (3m for back glass, 4m in the corners, 2m for the side walls in newer designs) matter less to your game than one functional rule: the ball is live off any wall or fence within the court boundary, as long as it bounces on your side of the net first. A ball that goes out of the court entirely — over the back wall or through a gap — is dead, but a ball that comes off the back glass and stays in play is completely legal, which is the entire basis of the sport's defensive lob-and-recover game. See our guide on playing shots off the back wall for how this shapes actual point construction.

Court dimensions in context

The full court is 20m x 10m, divided by the net into two 10m x 10m halves. That's a meaningfully smaller footprint than a tennis court, and combined with the enclosed walls, it's why padel rewards different footwork and positioning than either tennis or pickleball — you're rarely more than a few steps from a wall, and points are constructed around controlled, lower-margin shots rather than outright winners. If you want the full breakdown of how court size interacts with doubles positioning specifically, our doubles positioning guide goes deeper on that.

Why this actually matters day to day

None of these numbers need to be memorized to play recreationally. But three of them change real decisions: the lower net means you can be more aggressive with low volleys than tennis habits suggest; the underarm serve rule means power servers from other sports need to relearn the motion, not just the height; and the live-wall rule means "out" doesn't mean what it means in tennis — a ball off the glass is often still very much in play, and giving up on it early is one of the most common beginner mistakes on court.