If you have only ever played padel with three other people, you would be forgiven for thinking that is the only way it works. Walk into almost any club in Manchester and every court will have four players on it. Doubles is the sport. It is what the leagues, the socials and the coaching are built around, and it is what makes padel so sociable in the first place. But singles does exist, and it is a very different animal.
Doubles is the default for good reason
Padel was designed as a doubles game. The court is enclosed by glass and mesh, the walls are part of play, and the whole thing rewards two pairs trading shots, defending the back glass and fighting for the net. Four players fill the space nicely. You get long rallies, plenty of tactics and a game that a beginner can enjoy within their first hour. It is also cheaper and friendlier, because you are splitting the court between four people rather than two.
The court itself can change
Here is the part that surprises people. A standard padel court is 20 metres long and 10 metres wide. For proper singles, there is a dedicated singles court that keeps the full 20 metre length but narrows the width to 6 metres. That narrow strip changes the feel completely. There is far less angle to work with, so the sharp cross court winners that decide doubles points barely exist. Points become a war of patience and depth instead.
The trouble is that these purpose built singles courts are rare in Britain, and I have not come across one in Manchester. So in practice, most people who play singles just use a normal full width doubles court. That is where it becomes brutal. Covering 10 metres of width on your own, chasing every ball into both back corners, is punishing. It is genuinely one of the hardest cardio workouts you can get with a racket in your hand.
The rules do not change, but everything else does
This is the reassuring bit. The scoring is identical to doubles, the same 15, 30, 40 and games to six with a tie break. The serve is still underarm off a bounce, still into the diagonal box, and the walls are still in play. If you know how to play doubles, you already know the rules of singles.
What changes is the game underneath the rules. In doubles you and your partner own one half of the court each and you fight to hold the net as a unit. In singles you are responsible for every single ball, so charging the net becomes risky. The moment you move forward, the whole court behind you is open for a lob, a ball floated high over your head to land at the back. In doubles a partner might cover that. In singles there is no one there. Good singles players tend to hold a more central, patient position and only move up when they have earned it with a genuinely strong shot.
Shot selection tightens up too. You play higher percentage padel, aiming for depth rather than flashy angles, because a narrow miss or an overcooked winner costs you the point with no safety net. The lob matters more as a quality shot than a frequent one, since a weak lob simply hands your opponent time to set up and punish you.
The fitness gap is enormous
People underestimate this until they try it. Doubles lets you share the running, catch your breath at the net and recover between points. Singles removes all of that. You are covering roughly twice the ground, sprinting to recover to the middle after every shot, and doing it without a partner to bail you out. Ten minutes of full court singles will tell you exactly how fit you are. It is why coaches sometimes use it as a conditioning drill rather than a proper match format.
Why beginners almost never play it
Singles asks a lot before it gives anything back. You need decent movement, a reliable lob and the stamina to keep points alive, none of which a newcomer has yet. Doubles is more forgiving because a partner covers your gaps while you learn, and the social side keeps it fun even when your shots are ragged. Start with singles as a beginner and you will spend most of your time out of breath and out of position. It is much better to build the basics in doubles first.
Where you might actually find a game
Singles is niche here, so you will not see it on a club timetable. Your best route is to ask around your regular doubles group, since there is usually one person who fancies a fitness hit. Booking apps like Playtomic let you reserve a court and simply play singles on it, and some clubs run informal ladders where a singles challenge is welcome. Just be honest with yourself about the effort involved. Singles padel is a brilliant workout and a real test of your game, but doubles is the heart of the sport, and that is unlikely to change any time soon.