Left side or right side? How to choose your padel side (and play it properly).

At some point every padel player gets asked the question — usually by a new partner, thirty seconds before a match: "Left or right?" Some players have a firm answer. Most have a shrug. Here's how to turn the shrug into a decision.

What does each side actually do?

Direct answer: by convention, the right side is the building side and the left side is the finishing side. (For a right-handed pair — more on handedness below.)

The right-side player traditionally takes the first ball of most points, keeps rallies alive, plays the higher-margin shots, and sets the platform. Steadiness is the job description: fewer risks, more balls in, positions held.

The left-side player traditionally handles the middle with the forehand overhead, takes the smashes, and is trusted with the point-ending decisions. It's often called the stronger player's side because most balls through the middle sit on the left player's hitting side — and the finishing responsibility follows.

Treat these as conventional roles, not laws of physics. The best pairs blur them constantly. But as a starting grammar for a new partnership, they work.

Which side should I choose?

Direct answer: start with handedness, then honesty about your game, then the balance of the pair.

Handedness first. The conventional layout above assumes two right-handers. A left-hander typically plays the right side, putting both forehands in the middle — a genuinely awkward pair to play through. Two left-handers mirror the standard logic. If you're the lefty, the right side is usually your home.

Then your honest strengths. Not the player you'd like to be — the one your matches say you are. If your overhead is a weapon and you want the ball at 30-30, that's left-side temperament. If your game is rhythm, depth and not missing, the right side will make you more valuable, not less important. The right side is sometimes talked about as the junior partner's side. Wrong. Ask anyone who's played with a right-side player who never misses a return.

Then the pair, not the player. The question isn't "which is my best side?" but "which arrangement makes us hardest to beat?" Two aggressive finishers on one team means someone must volunteer for the building job. Two steady accumulators means someone has to learn to close. The side conversation is really a division-of-labour conversation, and it goes better over coffee than at 4-4.

Does the side you pick actually decide matches?

Direct answer: no — the evidence says matches are decided by error economy and net control, and both sides carry equal responsibility for each. At club level around 65% of points end on unforced errors (Ungureanu et al., 2022); playing from the net zone gives the highest chance of winning the point — 82% when serving and 74% when returning in professional men's padel (Prieto-Lage et al., 2024, Applied Sciences), and match outcome is closely tied to time spent at the net (Escudero-Tena et al., 2023, 2024).

Notice that neither of those mechanisms cares which side you're standing on. A left-side player who donates cheap errors chasing highlight smashes is a liability, whatever the convention says about finishing — worth remembering given that in the pro game the overhead family does account for around 55% of winners (Escudero-Tena et al., 2022), which is precisely why the temptation to over-hit lives on the left. And a right-side player who keeps balls in but never helps win the net is only doing half the job, because the net is the objective on both sides.

So play your side's role, but audit yourself against the numbers that matter: how many points did I donate, and how much of the match did we spend at the net? Those two answers outweigh the left/right question entirely.

Should I specialise in one side?

Here's the honest note: at club level, versatility beats specialisation early. Locking into one side after six months of padel mostly means baking in one-sided habits — a backhand you never develop, overheads you never practise, a whole half of the court that feels foreign. You'll also spend years playing pick-up matches where you don't get to choose.

A sensible path: play both sides regularly for your first couple of years, notice where your error count is genuinely lower and your influence genuinely higher, and let specialisation emerge from evidence rather than ego. The pros specialise because tiny margins matter at their level. Your margins are still measured in donated points per set — and those shrink faster with a rounded game.

Which side hides your leaks and which side exposes them? That's an evidence question, not a preference one. PADEXA measures this from one phone video — every rally watched, one fix, your own clips as proof. First match free at padexa.ai.

If you want to keep pulling this thread: the bigger picture on padel analysis, then where club padel points are actually lost.

Sources

• Ungureanu, A.N., Lupo, C. & Brustio, P.R. (2022). Padel match analysis: notational and time-motion analysis during official Italian sub-elite competitions. IJERPH, 19(14).
• Escudero-Tena, A. et al. (2023). Offensive and defensive actions and court position in professional padel. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 130(5).
• Escudero-Tena, A. et al. (2024). Rally dynamics and serve advantage in professional padel. Applied Sciences, 14(15).
• Escudero-Tena, A. et al. (2022). Winners and errors in professional padel. Applied Sciences, 12(16).

More numbers: 45 padel statistics every player should know.