Padel court dimensions: every measurement explained

Sooner or later every padel player gets curious about the box they’ve been running around in. Maybe you’re wondering why the lob you learned on a tennis court keeps sailing over the back glass, maybe your club is planning new courts, or maybe you’ve had the classic mid-match argument about whether the net really is lower than it looks. Either way, the dimensions of a padel court are worth knowing — partly because they explain so much about how the game actually plays, and partly because almost every number involved is more interesting than it has any right to be.

Here is the full set of measurements, from the official regulations down, and what each one means for the sport played inside them.

The court: 20 metres by 10, no arguments

A regulation padel court is a rectangle 20 metres long and 10 metres wide, giving 200 square metres of playing area. The official specifications allow a tolerance of just 0.5 per cent either way — ten centimetres over twenty metres — so unlike, say, football pitches, every padel court in the world is effectively the same size. The court you play on at your local club is dimensionally identical to the one Coello and Tapia contested the London P1 final on.

The net divides the court into two square halves of 10 metres by 10, and it’s worth pausing on how small that is. Each pair defends a box ten metres wide and ten deep. Split between two players, that’s a strip of court five metres across each — about the width of a decent garden shed is long. This single fact explains most of what makes padel feel so different from tennis: nobody is ever more than a few steps from the ball, which is why placement, patience and positioning beat raw power at every amateur level, and why rallies stretch on so much longer than they do across the net at your local tennis club.

For comparison: a tennis doubles court measures 23.77m by 10.97m — around 261 square metres, making a padel court roughly a quarter smaller, with half the players’ territory each once you remember padel is doubles-only. If you’ve ever wondered why tennis players struggle to adjust, the tape measure is a good place to start.

The walls: 3 metres of glass, 1 metre of mesh

The enclosure is what makes a padel court a padel court, and it’s more precisely regulated than most players realise.

The back walls — the ones behind each pair — stand 4 metres high. The bottom 3 metres must be a solid material, which in practice means toughened safety glass at nearly every modern venue (the regulations also permit brick or concrete, which you’ll still find on older Spanish courts). The final metre on top is metal mesh.

The side walls are stepped. From each corner, a solid section 3 metres high runs 2 metres along the side, then drops to 2 metres high for a further 2 metres. Mesh fencing fills the rest: 4 metres high at the ends of the court, dropping to 3 metres through the 16-metre middle stretch. That distinctive staircase profile you see silhouetted at every venue isn’t a design flourish — it’s in the rulebook, though a smooth sloping transition is also permitted.

The distinction between glass and mesh matters enormously once the ball is in play. A ball rebounding off the glass comes back true and playable — the whole basis of padel’s defensive game, and the reason learning the back glass is the fastest route to improvement. A ball hitting the mesh comes off dead or at an unpredictable angle, which is why good players aim their deepest drives at the fence line and why the pros treat a mesh rebound as a point-ender. Even the mesh itself is standardised: the holes must measure between 5 and 7.08 centimetres across the diagonal, big enough to see through, small enough that a padel ball never squeezes past.

The net: lower than you think

The padel net spans the full 10-metre width and stands 88 centimetres high at the centre, rising to a maximum of 92 centimetres at the posts. That’s noticeably lower than a tennis net (91.4cm at the centre, 1.07m at the posts), and it changes the geometry of the game more than the six-and-a-bit centimetres suggest. Attacking down the middle — over the lowest part — is percentage play, and the low net is one reason the compact, net-skimming volley game is so dominant.

A white band runs along the top, and the regulations even specify the tolerance on the height: five millimetres. Padel takes its measurements seriously.

The lines: one job each

Padel’s court markings are refreshingly minimal, because the lines only matter for one thing: the serve. Once the ball is in play, there are no tramlines, no baselines, nothing — the walls are the boundaries.

Each half contains a service line 6.95 metres from the net, with a central line splitting the service area into two boxes of 5 metres by 6.95. The central line extends 20 centimetres past the service line — a small, tidy detail that helps call the close ones. All lines are 5 centimetres wide and must contrast with the surface, which official regulations prefer in green, blue or terracotta. The underarm serve must bounce diagonally into the opposite box, exactly as in tennis; after that, forget the paint entirely.

Above and around: the measurements nobody sees

Two further numbers matter, especially in Britain, where the great indoor court build-out is racing to beat the weather.

The first is height. Indoor and covered courts need a minimum of 6 metres of clear, unobstructed space above the entire court, and the FIP recommends 8 metres for new constructions. Anyone who has played under a low sports-hall ceiling knows why: the lob is padel’s most important tactical shot, and a ceiling at 6 metres — the legal minimum — still gets clipped by a proper defensive lob. Venues converting old industrial units or tennis halls wrestle with this constantly, and it’s why some conversions play “small” even on a full-size court.

The second is footprint. The court is 20 by 10, but you can’t build one in a 20-by-10 space. Access around the outside pushes the practical footprint to roughly 25 by 15 metres per court — one reason padel courts, small as they are, still can’t be shoehorned in quite as easily as operators would like, and a real constraint in the land-starved cities where demand is hottest.

Entry to the cage, incidentally, is also regulated: one opening between 1.05 and 2 metres wide, or two openings of 0.72 to 1 metre each, on one or both sides. Some courts have no doors at all across the gap — perfectly legal, and the reason the pros can chase a lob out of the court and play it back in. That rule deserves (and will get) a post of its own.

The singles court: padel’s rare variant

There is an official singles version of the court: the same 20 metres long but only 6 metres wide, for a playing area of 120 square metres. You’ll struggle to find one in the UK — padel is overwhelmingly a doubles sport, the professional tours are doubles-only, and operators understandably prefer building courts four people pay for. But they exist, mostly in Spain, and singles padel is its own oddly exhausting discipline: all of the court coverage, none of the partner to blame.

Why the numbers matter

It’s easy to file court dimensions under trivia, but padel’s measurements are unusually load-bearing. The 10-metre width makes the court defendable by two people; the 88-centimetre net rewards the volley; the 3-metre glass gives defence a second life; the 6-metre ceiling minimum keeps the lob honest. Change any one of them and you’d have a different sport. The next time someone tells you padel is just tennis in a fish tank, you’ll have the numbers to explain exactly why the fish tank is the point.

Frequently asked questions

How big is a padel court?

A standard padel court is 20 metres long by 10 metres wide — 200 square metres of playing area — enclosed by walls 3 to 4 metres high. A small tolerance of 0.5% either way is permitted under the official regulations.

How high are the walls on a padel court?

The back walls are 4 metres high: a 3-metre solid section, usually toughened glass, topped by 1 metre of metal mesh. The side walls step down from 4 metres at the corners to 3 metres through the middle of the court.

How high is a padel net?

The net is 88 centimetres high at the centre and rises to a maximum of 92 centimetres at the posts — noticeably lower than a tennis net. It spans the full 10-metre width of the court.

Is a padel court smaller than a tennis court?

Yes, considerably. A padel court covers 200 square metres against roughly 261 for a tennis doubles court — about a quarter smaller, and always played as doubles, so each player covers far less ground.

How much space do you need to build a padel court?

More than the 20m × 10m court itself. With surrounding access space a footprint of roughly 25m × 15m is typical, and indoor courts need at least 6 metres of clear height above the court — 8 metres is recommended for new builds.