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Golden point, and you are serving. What is the plan?
On the golden point the serve is not a weapon. Land your most reliable one and win the net behind it.
It is 40-40 and the golden point decides the game. You are serving. What do you do?
On the golden point the serve is not a weapon. Land your most reliable one and win the net behind it.
Why
Because a padel serve cannot be an outright winner, an aggressive serve on a decisive point is all risk and no reward. What actually decides the golden point is who ends up at the net first, and that means a serve you can place without thinking, followed by a clean move forward and a split-step as they strike the return. Choose the serve you have hit a thousand times, put it somewhere awkward rather than somewhere spectacular, and go.
What this means at your level
Beginner
Do not change anything under pressure. The serve you hit at 15-0 is the serve you hit at 40-40.
Intermediate
The body serve is the best golden-point choice for most players: least likely to be missed, and hard to return with a clean lob.
Advanced
Agree the pattern with your partner before the point. Serve to the body, partner covers the middle intercept: one shot becomes a two-shot plan and the point is yours to lose.
Common questions
It is 40-40 and the golden point decides the game. You are serving. What do you do?
Your most reliable serve, and go in behind it. On the golden point the serve is not a weapon. Land your most reliable one and win the net behind it. Because a padel serve cannot be an outright winner, an aggressive serve on a decisive point is all risk and no reward. What actually decides the golden point is who ends up at the net first, and that means a serve you can place without thinking, followed by a clean move forward and a split-step as they strike the return. Choose the serve you have hit a thousand times, put it somewhere awkward rather than somewhere spectacular, and go.
Why not your biggest, most aggressive serve?
The padel serve is underarm and cannot win the point outright. Adding risk to a shot with no upside is the worst trade on the court.
What should a beginner do here?
Do not change anything under pressure. The serve you hit at 15-0 is the serve you hit at 40-40.
How does this change for an advanced player?
Agree the pattern with your partner before the point. Serve to the body, partner covers the middle intercept: one shot becomes a two-shot plan and the point is yours to lose.
What do the rules say?
At golden point there is no advantage: a single point decides the game, and the receiving pair choose which of them takes it.
Puzzles like this one
You have served. Where do you go?
In padel you serve in order to get to the net. Serve, then go.
intermediateThey cannot play the side glass. Where do you serve?
Serve at the weakness you have found, not at the space you can see.
beginnerCan you volley the return of serve?
The return of serve must bounce. It is the one ball in padel you are not allowed to volley.