Patrick Collins is a Clinical Hypnotherapist and Transformative Coach based in Horsham, West Sussex. He specialises in anxiety and performance issues… and is a self-confessed padel addict. Here, he explores the pyschology of padel pairings.
There’s a moment in every padel match that informs the outcome more than any amazing smash or bajada (although they are a good dopamine hit — see my previous article). An easy floater comes of the edge of your opponent’s racket, you watch it closely – it’s so easy! – and when it comes, you stuff it in the net! How embarrassing.
What your partner does next is crucial. Is it a laugh with you or at you? Is it a “no worries – it happens to us all” or is it a shrug, a sigh, a muttered comment, or the dreaded eye-roll for the benefit of whoever is watching? This matters more than the shot itself.
In padel, you can’t win alone. You’re locked into a glass box with someone else’s nerves, confidence and mood for the entire match. How you treat that person and how they treat you is a tactical decision with measurable consequences.
The psychology of the pair
Sports psychologists have spent decades studying what separates teams that gel from teams that unravel, and the findings consistently point to the same thing: cohesion predicts performance.
A landmark meta-analysis by Carron, Colman, Wheeler and Stevens, pooling results across dozens of team sport studies, found a moderate-to-strong relationship between team cohesion and success, rising to a strong relationship for “task cohesion” — how well a pair works together toward a shared goal, as opposed to simply liking each other socially.
For padel, that distinction matters. You don’t need your partner to be your best friend. You need the two of you to function as a unit under pressure: covering the same channel, backing each other’s calls, and recovering together after errors. That functional trust is built or broken in the many short moments between points, and often when emotions are heightened the most.
Communication changes outcomes
There’s a common assumption that positive communication is a ‘nice to have’ — pleasant, but not decisive. The research says otherwise.
Another widely cited meta-analysis by Hatzigeorgiadis, reviewing 32 studies and 62 effect sizes, found that self-talk and verbal cueing produced a statistically reliable improvement in sports performance.
Encouraging, instructional language — the kind you’d say out loud to a nervous partner between points — worked as well as, or better than, purely motivational hype.
Applied to a padel pair, this has a practical translation: a partner who talks you through a shaky start (“It’s OK – we go back to basics, stay together and build from the back “) is doing something psychologically equivalent to well-structured self-talk. You’re borrowing their sense of calm when yours is in danger of going AWOL.
There’s also a more visceral response mechanism at work: shame and blame shut people down. When a player feels judged after a mistake, the subconscious mind goes to protection mode, with the instinct to play safe, tighten up, and stop committing to shots — exactly the opposite of what is wanted and what padel rewards.
A partner who is encouraged to respond to errors with steadiness rather than frustration keeps both players’ decision-making loose and their shot selection bold, which is where matches are actually won.
What this look like on court
The pairs who play above their individual Playomic rating (other rating systems are available!) tend to share a few habits:
They separate the person from the point. A missed smash is information, not an indictment.
They talk during the point, not just after it. Calling the ball, confirming who’s taking the middle, a quick “watch that”, “me”, or “ad side back” isn’t just tactical clarity, it’s a steady bonding rhythm that keeps both players present and prevents the kind of mental drift that causes unforced errors in the first place. It also distracts from overthinking after an error.
They manage the scoreline together. Momentum swings hard in padel because points are long and rallies are physically taxing. A team that stays audibly composed at 3-5 down recovers more often than one that goes quiet or starts pointing fingers.
They understand that an error can begin way back in a rally, not just with the final “oops” moment. A good or bad decision by either player can allow the conditions for either an easy pop-out or a forced error.
They praise specifically, not generically. “Great shot” is fine, but “That cross-court lob bought us the point” reinforces the actual decision and action you want repeated.
The takeaway
None of this requires a personality transplant. It requires treating your partner’s confidence as a shared resource you’re both responsible for protecting, point by point.
The data backs up what good pairs already sense intuitively: cohesion and encouragement aren’t soft skills bolted onto the game. They’re part of the game. The next time your partner stuffs one in the net, remember that what you say next isn’t just kindness, it’s strategy!
