Racket sports: padel and tennis

What you will find here

The padel wall with rackets, ball tubes and tennis shoes together. Padel and tennis rackets hang side by side, so you can pick them up and compare before you choose.

The court decides the sole

Clay, hard court and the padel court each ask for a different sole. A shoe that grips well on clay slides differently on a padel court — and the other way round, a clay sole wears down on hard court faster than you would like.

So we ask first where you play. It is the same question we ask about football boots, for exactly the same reason.

You choose a racket in the hand

Weight and balance are things you only feel once you are holding a racket. On the wall they hang within reach, so you pick up three and work out for yourself which one suits your swing.

Who this department is for

For anyone starting out at padel and looking for a first racket, and for tennis players who need new shoes. Here too: you take it off the wall, you hold it and you take it home.

Padel and tennis are not the same

A padel racket is solid and perforated; a tennis racket is strung. That difference decides how the ball comes off the face and how heavy the racket feels in your hand. Anyone moving from tennis to padel notices it on the first ball.

The shoes differ too. A padel court is smaller than a tennis court: you push off more often, you brake more often and you turn more often. That asks something different of a sole than a long rally on clay.

If you play both, ask before you step onto the padel court in your old shoes.