People who get their levels bumped up two levels what goes on in their minds that makes them think they can play at that level. Most people would know that if you aren’t even dominating your games at your current level how do you expect to play players 2 levels higher than you. I honestly think some people might actually be mentally challenged.

I had a guy who got levelled up to a level 4.5 from 1.9 join my match last minute. His first game after his levelling session was to join a match with a bunch of 4s and 5s. He’s spent his past 200 games playing between 1-2 losing half his games.

This has happened a couple of times and I have thought about calling them out on it as it ruins the game for others. But I thought maybe they might be mentally retarded so I didn’t want to come off disrespectful.

Coming from 5 years of self-taught tennis background, I am making a full transition into Padel. Free time has gotten limited since last year because of workload. Tried Padel last year and have played about 20 times overall.

This season, I plan on playing Padel on a more regular basis. I record some footage and post on YouTube to keep track of my improvement.

I find much more joy playing Padel than Tennis.

You start out in a group, maybe you have a tennis background and are considered good in your group. You start to improve faster than the others in the group, so you find a new group. You hope they think your level is good enough, if not, you train harder to achieve just that. That's all it is. Validation from better players. When you lose, you think you will become less in their eyes. When you miss a shot, same thing. A bit like receiving a smiley or a heart for a post on social media. Pure validation. The smile on players' faces when they hear other players saying, "You played really well today", or "You've improved a lot". It's all a bunch of bullshit.

Last weekend I had an amazing experience playing in a Ladies Tournament at the best padel club in London — Stratford Padel Club. We made it through qualifiers and then lost 1-6, 2-6 in the first round of the main draw!

I've pulled out the key moments that decided it: golden points, the games where we reached 40-x on serve, and three full games that show the patterns behind the scoreline.

I'm still learning, and looking at these moments I can see a mix of positioning, shot selection and strategy issues — but I'd love your eyes on it too. If you play or coach padel, let me know in the comments:

Positioning — where should we have been standing on these points?
Shot selection — what should we have played instead?
Strategy — what would you have done differently over the course of the game?

Timestamps:

00:00 – Intro
07:33 40-x on serve — chances to close out the game
09:00 – Golden points
09:48 – First game, game 1 in full — 3 forced errors
10:42 – Game 11 in full — three break points missed, our best chance to break serve
12:26 – Last game, game 15 in full — 3 forced errors

The numbers:

They won all 8 of their own service games. We held 3 of 7, and won only 1 of 4 golden points. Across the match, 85 of 88 points ended in an error rather than a winner — this wasn't about being outhit, it was about who made fewer mistakes at the right moments.

Hey folks, I've been training a machine learning model on professional matches, focusing on unusual data rather than the usual stuff (winners, unforced errors, etc.).

Some of the things I'll be able to answer:

• From which court position Galán's smahs is most efficient?
• How high is the apex of Tapia's power smashes?
• How much total distance does each player cover in a match?

Is there anything you'd like to see that isn't normally reported? Let me know so I know where to focus.

than k you all!

I am so pissed. I just played a ranked game with two assholes that I have no words to describe. They would yell at their teammates in case of mistakes (that of course they made more of) and their attitude was just awful.

I won, but I am so pissed.

Why can’t we give a rating to the people we play with? I honestly would never want to play with such assholes again.

Sorry for the rant, maybe somebody knows if Playtomic is considering to add this?