1.0 to 2.0
Beginner
You are still learning to put the ball back with some intent. Points end on a mistake almost every time and hardly ever on a winner.
Guide · level
What padel level am I
Someone in the group is a fourth short for Saturday and asks what level you play at. You give a number, either the one somebody told you once or the one a test gave you, and on Saturday everyone finds out whether you were right.
Peldia does not give you a number from 1 to 7. It gives you its own, which comes from your matches. You start at 1,500, or wherever your club places you.
The scale, band by band
It is not which strokes you know: it is what happens inside the point against someone from your band.
2.5 to 3.0
Lower intermediate
You can rally, you use the back wall and you know you are supposed to go up to the net, even if you get caught there. The long points are the ones you lose.
3.5 to 4.0
Intermediate
You have a reliable bandeja, you defend from the back without handing the ball over, and you play to a plan rather than shot by shot. It is by far the widest band, and the one where the number gets argued about.
4.5 to 5.0
Advanced
You put the ball where you meant to, you come in when it is on and you can finish a point from above. When you miss it is because you chose wrong, not because you could not execute.
5.5 to 7.0
Competitive
You play sanctioned tournaments. If this is you, you did not look it up on Google.
In Spain and across Latin America clubs often use letters instead: D beginner, C intermediate, B advanced and A competitive. There is no table that converts one into the other, so a C at one club can be a B at the club down the road.
If your club plays on Peldia, it can tell us which band you are in and you start there.
| Band | 1 to 7 | Letter | You start at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 1 to 2 | D | 1,200 |
| Lower intermediate | 2.5 to 3 | none | 1,350 |
| Intermediate | 3.5 to 4 | C | 1,500 |
| Advanced | 4.5 to 5 | B | 1,650 |
| Competitive | 5.5 to 7 | A | 1,800 |
It is where you come in, not what you are: from there your matches move it.
Why a test cannot know
You are the one filling in the test, and nobody rates themselves on their worst day.
And what decides a match is not which strokes you know, it is which ones still work with someone across the net trying to stop them.
The proof is at your own club: if level could be answered, nobody would have to reshuffle the coaching groups every autumn. They get reshuffled every year.
Read the explanation
You are the one filling in the test.
It asks which strokes you are comfortable with, and you answer thinking of the day the bandeja came off, not the Saturday you turned up after two weeks away. It is not that people lie. Nobody rates themselves on their worst day, and the questionnaire is written so that you recognise yourself in it.
And there is something a test cannot ask at all. What decides a match is not which strokes you know, it is which ones still work with someone across the net trying to stop them. Two people can check exactly the same boxes and finish 6-0.
What does know
The matches you have already played. And below 8 matches, it gives no number.
Read the explanation
The matches you have already played. Nothing else is needed, and the good part is that there is nothing to fill in: it already happened.
It works like this. You start at 1,500 points, or in the band your club places you in if you play at one, and from there the number moves after each match according to what that match led you to expect. Beating someone better than you moves it a lot. Beating someone you were meant to beat moves it a little. Losing to someone below you costs a fair bit. The score counts too, but who won matters more than by how much.
And it says no when it does not know. Below 8 matches it gives no number at all, because with fewer than that it would be measuring luck. A single americano is about six, so realistically it takes two or three sessions before the number means anything. A test gives you one straight away, and that is precisely the problem.
What this number will not tell you either
If you have only ever played at your own club, your number holds inside your club, and not outside it.
It happens to any system built on results, not just ours.
Read the explanation
If you have only ever played at your own club, your number holds inside your club and not outside it. A 1,600 at one place and a 1,600 at another are not comparable until somebody has played at both, and until that happens the two groups are separate worlds that happen to use the same scale.
That is not a flaw in how we work it out. It happens to any system built on results, and it is worth knowing before you compare your number with a friend from another club.
Is this the same as the level in other apps?
No, and one cannot be converted into the other.
The level in other appsEach one has its own scale and its own way of working it out.
This numberOur own, and it comes from results. You do not declare it: at most your club says where you start, and from there the matches decide.
Work it out from your own matches
Paste one afternoon of results, as they are in the group chat, and it gives you everyone's level.
Who plays above expectation and who handles the tight matches. Nothing is stored: not the names, not the results, not the report.
It gives you a number that starts at 1,500, not a level from 1 to 7.