Types of Padel Partners: A Field Guide for Doubles Players

Every club has the same handful of types of padel partners, and sooner or later you will play alongside all of them. Some make you better, some make you quieter, and one of them has already blamed the balls this morning. What follows is a field guide, written with love and a certain amount of scar tissue.

The Equipment Analyst

You lose a point. Your partner picks up the ball, squeezes it, looks at it the way a jeweller looks at a disappointing diamond, and announces that it is dead. The tin was opened forty minutes ago. It is not dead.

The Equipment Analyst has a materials-based explanation for everything. Too cold, so the balls are slow. Too warm, so they fly. The grip is slippery, the glass is dirty, the lights are in a strange place. What never comes up is the volley that went into the bottom of the net, which was, on close inspection, a racket problem.

How to handle them: agree warmly, open a new tin, and watch the next error travel just as confidently into the net. If you want to say it without saying it, the My Partner Blames The Balls t-shirt does the talking. For the partner whose list of excuses has grown beyond equipment to include the sun, the wind and a shoulder that was fine all week, there is the Professional Excuse Maker t-shirt.

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The Uninvited Coach

This partner stands two metres away and runs a live tactical commentary. Move up. Stay back. Cover the middle. Do not lob there. Why did you lob there? The advice arrives between every point, is received in silence, and is repeated four points later regardless of what happened in between.

In fairness, some of it is correct. That is what makes it so hard to listen to. The Uninvited Coach is also the only person on court who never needs any advice, a fact they will confirm immediately after putting an easy smash into the fence.

How to handle them: nod, say "good shout", and carry on exactly as before. Or accept the situation and buy them the My Favorite Hobby Is Correcting My Partner t-shirt, which works best as a gift from the person on the receiving end.

The Poacher

A ball comes down the middle. Your partner shouts "mine", which would be reasonable if it were theirs. It was yours. It was very clearly yours. They lunge across, hit it into the net, then turn round to apologise with the least convincing "sorry" in sport.

Occasionally the Poacher does not quite get there first and the two of you swing at the same ball. Padel has an answer for this. Under the International Padel Federation rules, if both players on a team hit the ball, simultaneously or one after the other, the point is lost, because only one member of the team may play it. There is a small mercy in the small print: if you both go for it and one of you hits the ball while the other only hits their partner's racket, that is not counted as a double hit. The friendship may be a different matter.

The rules are also unsentimental about what happens when the Poacher's shot hits you instead. If the ball touches the player who hit it, or their partner, the point is lost. Being struck in the back of the head by your own team is therefore both painful and bad for the scoreline.

How to handle them: agree a clear rule for balls down the middle before the match, then watch them ignore it. For the long-suffering partner, the Sorry Not Yours t-shirt says what every Poacher's apology actually means.

The One Who Carries You

Not every partner is a problem. Some are the solution. This is the player who covers two thirds of the court, reads the lob before it happens, and still says "unlucky" when you miss a ball that was sitting up at head height.

Both of you know the arrangement. You hover around the net pretending to have a plan, occasionally play a decent volley, and accept the congratulations with the modesty of someone who has contributed roughly a third. In return, you book the court, bring the new balls and never question a single decision.

How to handle them: gratefully, and forever. If you have one of these, the My Partner Carries Me t-shirt is an honest thing to wear. Buying it for yourself is humble. Buying it for them is a love letter.

The Former Partner

Padel partnerships rarely end with a row. They end with a lob you both left, a "that was yours" said slightly too loudly, and perhaps a golden point: the single deciding point at deuce that settles the whole game, as our guide to padel scoring and the golden point explains. After that, a car journey home conducted entirely in the language of the radio.

Nobody announces the break-up. The WhatsApp group simply rearranges itself. One Tuesday you look at the booking and find you are now on the other side of the net, playing against the person who used to share your water bottle. You will both be extremely polite. You will both be trying very hard to win.

How to handle them: shake hands, play well, and never discuss that golden point again. If your Tuesday four has lost a member this way, there is the My Partner Is No Longer My Partner t-shirt. Timing matters: wear it after the split, never during.

Which of these types of padel partners are you?

The uncomfortable truth about any field guide is that you are in it too. If you have ever inspected a ball after missing a volley, shouted "mine" at a ball that wasn't, or explained to someone how to cover the middle, then congratulations: you are somebody's story.

The good news is that padel is played in pairs, so you only need one partner who tolerates you. Look after them. Let them take the middle occasionally. And if you would like to thank or tease them in cotton form, have a look through the full collection of padel t-shirts.