How padel competitions work in the UK

In Great Britain padel is governed by the LTA, the same body that runs tennis, under the name LTA Padel. Its competitions are open to anyone, including players who have only been playing for a few weeks, and entering one takes a few minutes online.

What you need to enter

To enter an LTA Padel competition you need an LTA membership number, which you get by signing up to LTA Advantage. Advantage is free. Once you have it, the steps are short: find an event on the LTA competitions portal, choose the event you want and complete the online entry. Each listing shows its own entry deadline and conditions, and names an organiser you can contact if something is unclear.

You do not need to belong to a club to enter a tournament. Team competition is different, as described below.

Five grades of tournament

LTA Padel tournaments are graded from 5 to 1:

• Grade 5, Local Tour: for players new to competition, at local venues, accepted first come, first served. Draws have eight to sixteen pairs in a compass format, so every pair plays at least three matches.
• Grade 4, County Tour: beginner to intermediate, at local venues, with entry decided by LTA Padel ranking.
• Grade 3, Regional Tour: intermediate to advanced, at regional venues.
• Grades 2 and 1, LTA Padel British Tour: the highest level of domestic padel, for advanced players up to professionals.

The LTA itself suggests Grade 5 or Grade 4 for a first event. There are also separate pathways for juniors (the LTA Padel Youth Tour) and for players aged 40 and over (the GB Seniors Tour), and an annual LTA Padel National Championships.

How rankings work

You earn ranking points by playing LTA-sanctioned tournaments from Grade 5 to Grade 1. Points depend on the grade and how far you get, and your ranking is made up of your best six results from the previous 52 weeks. Rankings are recalculated weekly.

The LTA does not run a padel skill rating. Its rankings are based purely on tournament results. Many clubs and booking apps use their own level ratings to organise social games and coaching groups, and those are separate from your LTA ranking.

The National League

The LTA Cupra Padel National League is the biggest team competition in Britain. Teams must come from an LTA registered venue, there are separate men's and women's competitions, and each team has five players. A fixture is two matches played by two different pairs, each best of three sets with a championship tie-break to ten points in place of a third set.

Teams are split into three divisions. Division 1 holds the top teams from the previous year, Division 2 runs regional play-offs and finals with promotion to Division 1, and Division 3 is a home-and-away round robin where team captains arrange their own fixtures. All players must be LTA Advantage members, and the entry itself is made by your venue's club administrator, so talk to your venue if you want to put a team in.

Club leagues and social play

Below the LTA structure there is a great deal of informal competition. Many venues run their own leagues, ladders, americanos and match-play evenings, and LTA Padel points out that player-run social groups organise regular sessions too. These are the natural place to start: you find partners at your level and get used to playing points that count before you enter a graded event.

The professional level

At the top sits the professional game. The International Padel Federation (FIP) is the world governing body and runs the CUPRA FIP Tour, while the Qatar Airways Premier Padel Tour is the leading professional circuit. Premier Padel came to Britain for the first time in August 2026, with a P1 event at Olympia London. These events are for watching rather than entering, but they are the level the British Tour feeds into.

Getting started

Sign up to LTA Advantage, play a few local club sessions, then enter a Grade 5 event with a partner. To find a venue, look for padel clubs near you on this site.