What are the differences between padel balls?

What Is a Good Padel Ball?

A good padel ball is one that lasts a long time and maintains its quality. These qualities include bounce performance, internal pressure, and appearance. For amateur players, precision isn’t as crucial—they mainly want a ball that remains playable for a long time without becoming too fluffy or worn. For competitive players, durability is less important. They want a ball that can be smashed out of the cage (bounce performance), allows for spin (surface texture), and can be hit with control (internal pressure).

FIP Standards

The FIP (International Padel Federation), following the ITF (International Tennis Federation), has set standards for official match balls. The requirements for tennis balls and padel balls are quite similar. The weight must be between 56 and 59.4 grams. A padel ball may be slightly smaller and have less bounce than a tennis ball, which makes sense given the smaller court. This reduced size and lower bounce are due to lower pressure: a new padel ball typically has 11 psi (pounds per square inch), compared to 14 psi in a tennis ball. A slightly longer fiber on the surface also slows the ball down. Still, there are match-grade padel balls on the market with pressure similar to tennis balls—because competitive players do want fast, hard balls they can smash out of the cage.

Remarkable Observation

One striking quote from the website worldpadelinsider reads: “I could be completely wrong, but I suspect that tennis balls which fail the bounce test due to low pressure may go on to live their lives as padel balls—especially the ones sold as unbranded by large sports retailers. At the very least, this would reduce waste costs for manufacturers.”