A social padel tournament is mostly arithmetic and a little bit of hosting. Get the numbers right before anyone arrives and the evening runs itself. Get them wrong and you spend the night recounting scores at the side of court 2 while eight people wait for you.
This guide is written for club organisers and friend groups running an Americano, Mexicano or King of the Court. None of these formats is in the FIP Rules of Padel. The rulebook covers how a match is played, so the event structure is yours to decide. That is a freedom, but it also means every rule you do not announce will be argued about.
Step 1: player numbers and courts
Start with the number that matters most: four players per court. If you want everyone playing every round, book one court per four players.
The second number is how the player count divides by 4. A perfect Americano, where everyone partners everyone else exactly once, exists only when the count leaves a remainder of 0 or 1 when divided by 4. That result goes back to the mathematics of whist tournaments (Chang, Costa, Feng and Wang).
| Players | Courts | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 | 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 | Everyone plays every round, perfect rotation |
| 5, 9, 13, 17 | 1, 2, 3, 4 | One player sits out each round, each exactly once |
| 6, 7, 10, 11, 14 | 1 to 3 | Perfect rotation impossible; sit-outs shared, some repeat partners |
Eight players on two courts is the sweet spot for most clubs: easy to fill, easy to book, and a full rotation takes 7 rounds. If you sell 12 places and two people drop out, 10 still works, but if you have a reserve list, use it to get back to 12. If one extra person turns up at 8, you have 9, which is a perfect count again.
Fewer courts than players divided by 4 is fine; the same matches simply spread over more rounds. Twelve players on 2 courts need 17 rounds for a full Americano instead of 11. In practice you play as many as fit and stop.
Step 2: book courts and time
Most club socials are booked for 90 or 120 minutes. Station Padel’s Mexicano on Playtomic runs for 90 minutes, Padel Park Dubai’s Americano for 120, Glasgow Club runs its Americano for 2 hours, and Bounce puts typical socials at 60 to 120 minutes.
Ask players to arrive 10 minutes early. For competition matches, the FIP rules set a 3-minute courtesy rally before play. A social does not need to follow that, but a short group warm-up before round 1 saves you a cold, scrappy first round.
Step 3: choose the format
| Format | How partners change | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Americano | Fixed rotation, new partner every round | Meeting people, mixed padel level, beginners |
| Mexicano | Re-paired by standings after each round | Uneven padel level, competitive groups |
| Team Americano | Play as a pair, opponents rotate | Groups that arrive as pairs |
| Mixed Americano | One man and one woman per pair, rotating | Mixed socials with equal numbers |
| King of the Court | Winners move up a court, losers move down | Competitive ladder, fixed or rotating pairs |
The guides on what padel Americano is, Americano vs Mexicano and King of the Court go into each one.
Step 4: points or time
Matches in these formats are played to a fixed total of points rather than games and sets. Common totals are 16, 21 or 24 according to Padel Browser; Padel.fyi uses 32 in its examples. Bandeja offers 16, 21, 24 or 32 points, or time-based rounds.
Points are fair, because every match has the same number of rallies. The catch is that courts finish at different times, and a quick court waits for a slow one.
Time keeps every court in step. Everyone starts and stops together, which matters most in Mexicano, where the next round cannot be paired until every score is in. The catch is that a match with long rallies produces fewer points.
Two small tips. A 21-point match cannot end level, which saves you thinking about draws. And whatever you choose, work backwards from the booking.
Timing for common group sizes
As a rule of thumb, Bandeja assumes about 0.6 minutes per point plus 2 minutes for the changeover: roughly 12 minutes for a 16-point match, 15 for 21 points, 16 for 24 points and 21 for 32 points. Real matches vary, so treat these as planning figures.
| Group | Rounds for full cycle | 16 points | 21 points | 24 points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 players, 1 court | 5 | 60 min | 75 min | 80 min |
| 8 players, 2 courts | 7 | 84 min | 105 min | 112 min |
| 9 players, 2 courts | 9 | 108 min | 135 min | 144 min |
| 12 players, 3 courts | 11 | 132 min | 165 min | 176 min |
| 12 players, 2 courts | 17 | 204 min | 255 min | 272 min |
| 16 players, 4 courts | 15 | 180 min | 225 min | 240 min |
And the other way round, how many rounds fit in a booking:
| Booking | 16 points | 21 points | 24 points | 32 points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 90 minutes | 7 rounds | 6 rounds | 5 rounds | 4 rounds |
| 120 minutes | 10 rounds | 8 rounds | 7 rounds | 5 rounds |
So 8 players on 2 courts at 24 points complete a full Americano in a two-hour booking. Twelve players on 3 courts at 16 points get 10 of their 11 rounds in two hours, which most groups are happy with.
Step 5: prepare the schedule and screen
If you are running an Americano, print the rotation and put it where players can see it. The schedules index has printable pages for every common size, for example 8 players on 2 courts, 12 players on 3 courts and 16 players on 4 courts.
For live standings, Bandeja works in two ways. On one device, offline, you enter the scores yourself. Or you create a live room: each court gets a QR code, players scan it, enter a 4-digit PIN and submit their own court’s score, and you approve it. The TV page then shows the current round and the standings full screen, switching between them automatically. Put it on a TV or laptop by the courts and players stop asking you who they are playing next. Rooms stay available for 45 days, so you can look back at results afterwards.
Step 6: brief the players
Spend two minutes before round 1 on the rules you are going to be asked about anyway:
- Serving. The serve follows normal padel rules: underarm, after a bounce, with at least one foot on the ground behind the service line, as the LTA Padel rules page sets out. Who serves when is a convention: Padel.fyi rotates the serve every 4 points, Glasgow Club uses 2 or 4 serves per player. Pick one.
- Reporting scores. Who submits, and when. With a live room, one player per court submits with the PIN.
- Sit-outs. Whether players who sit out get nothing, half the match total (12 for a 24-point match) or their own average. This is a club choice, not a rule; Bandeja supports all three.
- Tie-breaks. Bandeja ranks by points, then wins (a draw is half a win), then point difference. Say so before the end, not after.
- The last round. Announce when it starts so nobody leaves early.
Step 7: run it and close out
During the event your job is to keep courts turning over. Approve scores as soon as they come in, call the next round, and nudge any court that is drifting. The FIP rules allow a maximum of 20 seconds between points in competition. You do not need a stopwatch, but long breaks between points are what turn a two-hour session into two and a half.
At the end, announce the top three while everyone is still on court, then share the final table as WhatsApp text or a PNG image straight from Bandeja.
Prizes and etiquette
Prizes do not need to be big. Something for the winner plus something anyone could win, such as the best single-match score or a draw among everyone who finished, keeps the bottom half of the table playing properly in the last round.
Etiquette in a social mostly comes down to three things: arrive on time, call your own lines honestly, and enter the real score. The FIP rules ask players to “behave courteously and respect other people during any competition whether taking part or not”, which is as good a house rule as any.
Organiser checklist
- Player count confirmed, ideally 8, 12 or 16, with a reserve list
- One court per four players, booked for 90 or 120 minutes
- Format and points per match chosen to fit the booking
- Serving convention, sit-out compensation and tie-breaks decided
- Schedule printed or live room created, QR codes on each court
- TV or laptop set up with the standings page
- Balls, water and a prize ready
- Final table shared with the group afterwards