Padel is turning up on more college-fest and club sports lists every year — a glass-walled court, a doubles-only game, and rallies that stay alive off the walls make it a crowd favourite to watch between other events. Running a padel tournament looks like running a tennis or squash one at first glance, but the draw itself works differently: every entry is a fixed pair, never a lone player, and that single fact changes how registration, seeding and the bracket all have to be built.
Padel is scored, not judged — and it’s always a pair
In eTalenter’s competition model, padel runs as a Sports event — no judging panel, no rubric out of 100. Results go in directly as match outcomes (sets and games won), the same as any racket sport. The structural difference is the participant type: padel has no singles format at all — the game is only ever played 2-vs-2 — so every entry registers as a Team of exactly two players from the first step, not an Individual who gets paired later. Build the draw around pairs, and the rest of the tournament runs the same way a tennis or squash bracket would.
Why padel scoring reads differently from tennis or squash
Padel borrows tennis’s games-and-sets structure, but with its own rules organisers need to publish in advance:
- Underarm serve only, hit diagonally below waist height after one bounce — no overhead serve exists in padel, which removes the serve-speed advantage that shapes a tennis draw’s seeding logic.
- The ball may be played off the back and side glass/mesh walls after bouncing once on the court, the same way a squash ball plays off the front wall — rallies run longer than tennis because a ball that would be a tennis winner can still be returned off the glass.
- Golden point (no-ad) scoring is the usual tournament format: at 40-40 (deuce), the next point wins the game outright rather than playing deuce/advantage — this is the single biggest difference organisers must decide and publish, since it shortens match length noticeably and some clubs still prefer traditional ad scoring.
- Best of 3 sets, each to 6 games (win by 2, or a 7-point tie-break at 6-6) — identical shape to tennis, so a match-length budget per court carries over directly from any tennis draw you’ve run before.
Pick the format before you open registration
The same three shapes used for any racket sport, but every slot in every one of them is a pair, not a player:
- Single knockout (elimination): one lost match and the pair is out — the right choice when one or two courts need to get through a large entry list in a single day. Pad the bracket with byes when the pair count isn’t a power of two.
- Round robin (league): every pair meets every other pair once; rank by match wins, then sets won, then games difference. Workable for 4-6 pairs in a group, or as a group stage feeding a knockout.
- Americano / Mexicano format: a club/social variant genuinely different from the other two — players rotate partners every round rather than staying fixed as one pair for the whole event, and individual points (not match wins) accumulate across rounds to rank players. If an organiser wants this format, register players as Individuals and let the schedule rotate team pairings round by round rather than fixing a Team entry up front — decide which format you’re running before registration opens, since it changes how entries are built from the very first step.
Age groups, gender categories and seeding
Run age/class bands the same way as any other sport — Junior, Senior, Open, or a school/college’s own Age Groups Setup — and keep Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles draws separate, since padel is commonly played in all three at club and college level, unlike squash where mixed draws are rare. Where a pair’s two players fall in different age bands, publish a rule up front (e.g. “classified by the older partner’s band”) rather than leaving it to be argued at the draw table. If recent results are known, seed the top 2-4 pairs into opposite halves of the bracket so the two strongest pairs can’t meet before the semi-final.
Settle these before the first serve
- Scoring convention: golden point (no-ad) or traditional ad scoring at deuce — publish this in the rulebook; it’s the one rule every entrant will ask about.
- Set and match format: best of 3 sets to 6 games (7-point tie-break at 6-6), or a shortened single-set/pro-set format if court time is tight on a one-court fest schedule.
- Who officiates: most school/college padel runs self-officiated like informal tennis (players call their own lines), but a neutral umpire for finals avoids disputes over a wall-rebound or double-bounce call.
- Court time limit: a soft per-match cap (e.g. 45-50 minutes) to keep a one- or two-court schedule on time, with a published tie-break rule if a match is still live when time runs out.
- Partner-replacement rule: what happens if one half of a registered pair withdraws injured mid-tournament — forfeit, or a substitute from a published reserve list, decided and announced before day one.
- Tie-break order for round-robin ties: match wins → head-to-head → sets difference → games difference, fixed and published before the league starts (see our guide on breaking a tie in a competition).
One pair, one entry, no re-typed partnerships
Because every padel entry is a pair from the moment registration opens, the one thing worth getting right early is registering the Team once with both players attached, rather than registering two Individuals and manually matching them up later in a spreadsheet — that’s exactly the kind of re-typed, easy-to-mismatch step that causes a wrong pairing to reach the draw. On eTalenter, register each pair once as a Team, generate the bracket or league table automatically, and record each result as the match finishes — the next round’s pairing updates immediately, visible to both players and coordinators on their phones. Entry numbers, a printable draw sheet and certificates for the final placings all come from the same registration.
FAQ
Is padel ever played as singles?
Not in organised competition. Padel courts and rules are built around doubles only — register every entry as a two-player Team from the start rather than as an Individual.
How is padel scoring different from tennis?
The games-and-sets structure is the same (best of 3 sets to 6 games, 7-point tie-break at 6-6), but padel serves underarm only, lets the ball play off the back and side walls after one bounce, and almost always uses golden-point (no-ad) scoring at deuce — publish the no-ad rule clearly, since it’s the detail most players will ask about.
What’s the difference between a fixed-pairs draw and an Americano/Mexicano format?
A standard knockout or round robin keeps the same two players together as one pair for the whole event. An Americano/Mexicano rotates partners every round and ranks individual players by points accumulated across rounds — decide which one you’re running before registration, since it changes whether you register Teams or Individuals.
What if one player in a pair can’t continue mid-tournament?
Publish a partner-replacement rule before the draw is made — whether the pair forfeits outright or may bring in a substitute from a declared reserve list — so it’s a published rule, not a courtside argument.
See it before you build the draw
Open a live demo and log in as a demo coordinator or judge — no sign-up — to see a Team draw and live results in action. Questions welcome on WhatsApp (+91 96056 56508) or support@etalenter.com. We can help with the eTalenter software — not with your entries.
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