Rankings in padel are a perennial problem. Rankings are important as playing at broadly the same level is central to enjoyment and improvement - there is little point or enjoyment in playing too 'far up' or too 'far down' (i.e. winning 6-0, 6-0, or losing 0-6, 0-6).
There is no universally accepted padel standard ranking. Various commercial applications (notably Playtomic) have inbuilt ranking algorithms which are based on match results, but their algorithms can produce inappropriate rankings when used in a ‘closed’ environment such as an individual club – the ‘large fish in a small pond’ scenario. Best results are obtained when players play in multiple clubs against varied opposition as this ensures a consistency of ranking across clubs.
The WPC’s regular box leagues are based on the Padellevels (www.padellevels.io) platform and these results contribute to an individual player padel ranking on the Padellevels platform. Padellevels aims to become the de facto global neutral padel ranking system – much in the same way it has achieved this for squash via Squashlevels. Whether it can transfer its achievements to padel is yet to be determined.
From October 2024 – Dec 2025, the centre published on its website a detailed padel ranking indication which relied on self-certification. This was not a success as many players overestimate their ability. This lead to a large disparity in standards in the WhatsApp groups and, consequently, many players did not publish games in the groups as they could not be sure of playing standards.
Ranking Evenings
To address this, the centre runs regular ‘ranking evenings’ which will feed into a set of strictly controlled, level-based WhatsApp groups managed by the centre and only accessible only to those who have attended a ranking evening or have been otherwise appropriately ranked. Players can only be promoted to a higher-level group once they are re-ranked, typically by attending a further ranking evening.
For more information on the ranking methodology and how the ranking evenings work, please see the document in Acebook - our online booking system.
