Performance Analysis in Padel: A Systematic Review

The aim of the study was to carry out a systematic review of the most recent research on performance analysis in padel. An electronic search was made in four sport science databases: Web of Science, Pubmed, Scopus and Google Scholar. Systematic review principles were used to identify and select studies following inclusion and exclusion criteria. From a total of 261 articles identified in the initial search, 27 articles were included in analysis, all dating from after 2018. The articles were classified according to four study variables: temporal aspects, game actions, on-court movements and match score studies, ordered in turn according to the year of publication. The results show differences in the four study variables according to the gender or the level of players, the side or the zone of play and the duration of the match. In conclusion, the results define the relevant aspects of the game with the aim of being used at a technical, tactical and physical level, as well as contributing to the development of scientific knowledge in padel, allowing future research to address less studied topics and carry out more complete and specific studies and interventions for a greater understanding of the needs of padel.


Introduction
Padel is a racket sport that was born in Mexico in 1969 (Sánchez-Alcaraz, 2013).In recent years, it has experienced an exponential increase in the number of practitioners in Spain (Courel-Ibáñez et al., 2017a) both at a social level, as it increases the level of well-being in practitioners (Villena-Serrano et al., 2020), and at a professional level due to an increase in the number of federative licenses (Gómez et al., 2019).
Padel is played on a court measuring 20 x 10 m, surrounded by glass walls or walls and electro-welded mesh, 4 and 3 m high (International Padel Federation, 2020), with the ball being able to bounce off the side or back walls, with this interaction accounting for a quarter of the total actions of the game (Gea García et al., 2021).Similarly, it is a high-intensity intermittent sport that combines high-frequency and low-intensity gestures (Sánchez- Muñoz et al., 2020), which in turn leads to an increase in the pace of play and participation by players (Courel-Ibáñez et al., 2019) compared to other racket sports that do not have this characteristic.Cardiorespiratory factors, strength and agility are considered key to optimise padel performance.Especially agility, due to changes of direction during play (Pradas et al., 2021), is an important factor to evaluate as it determines adaptations to training (De Villarreal et al., 2023).
The increase in the number of players has also led to a greater number of scientific publications in this field (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2015), mostly those related to psychology (Díaz- García et al., 2021García et al., , 2023)), physiology, medicine and especially performance analysis (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2018, 2023a), defined as the investigation of performance in competition and training in sports in different contexts (O'Donoghue, 2015).The main objective of performance analysis is to analyse, record and evaluate the game actions and behaviors of players in real game situations

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
The following inclusion criteria were used to select the articles in this review: (a) articles published from 2018 onwards, (b) a sample of padel players, (c) original studies, (d) variables related to performance, especially focused on game actions, time structure, player movement and scoreboard study; (e) articles published in scientific journals (JCR impact index, Scimago SJR index or meeting at least 30 Latindex criteria).Excluded were (a) abstracts or communications to conferences, (b) books or book sections, (c) padel modalities such as individual padel, adapted padel or wheelchair padel.Furthermore, articles in both Spanish and English were included.

Identification and Selection of Studies
The search process was conducted using the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) method to identify potential studies to be included through six phases (Webster and Watson, 2002;Wright et al., 2007): (i) original database search, (ii) removal of duplicates, (iii) first phase screening on titles and abstracts, (iv) second phase screening on the full text of the article, (v) forward search (references cited in the included studies), and (vi) backward search (citations of the included studies).

Results
A PRISMA flow diagram with the results obtained from the information search is shown in Figure 1.The initial search provided 261 potential articles for inclusion in the review.After the first screening by analysing each title and abstract in detail, 108 were excluded because they were duplicates, 13 because they belonged to books or conferences and 87 because their quality was insufficient for inclusion.Of the 53 articles selected in the first screening, 18 were excluded after a detailed analysis of the sample used, method employed and variables considered.Finally, a total of 27 studies were included for analysis.
Table 1 shows the articles classified according to the four areas of performance analysis.The actions of play (n = 23) were the most studied topic, while the study of the match score (n = 5), temporal aspects of padel (n = 6) and players' movements (n = 2) were the areas with the least research.Regarding the year of publication, 77.7% of the papers were published from 2020 onwards.Finally, 62.9% of articles were published in international journals with the JCR impact index and 22.2% with the Scimago SJR index.
A summary of the sample, variables and main results of each article analyses in this systematic review is presented in Table 2.

Discussion
The aim of this paper was to carry out a systematic review of the most recent research on performance analysis in padel.After the search methodology and selection of articles, a total of 27 studies were finally included that analysed one of the four areas of performance in padel: time structure, game actions, player movement and the match score.

Time Structure in Padel
One of the aspects most frequently addressed in research carried out in padel are the time actions of the game.Regarding the total duration of the match, studies have indicated that the duration is approximately 90 min in World Padel Tour (WPT) matches, around 40 min each set (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2021a), with differences depending on gender, being higher in women (García-Benítez et al., 2018).Similarly, in both genders, set duration is shorter in matches with golden point (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020c), compared to sets played with advantage games.In relation to the level of play, WPT professional players have 30% of real play time (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2021a), being lower than in regional level players (45.92%) (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2019).Finally, as a function of age, the actual playing time in U-18 and U-16 players is 29.32% and 34.7%, respectively (García-Benítez et al., 2018).In the Australian position, returners direct 3 out of 4 returns to the server when the serve is to the glass, mainly looking for the gap in the court with a down the line return.When the serve is to the centre, there are 10% more returns intercepted by the server's partner, due to covering the centre of the court.In the traditional position, when the serve is to the "T", 50% of the returns are hit by the server and 50% by the server's partner, while when the serve is to the glass, 10% more returns are hit by the server's partner than those hit by the server.Male players win more first serves and points on the serve.The percentage of points won is higher the fewer the number of strokes in the point.The advantage on the serve is lost after the twelfth hit in men, and seventh hit in women.More than 60% of the serves are to the side wall.From the left side, 12% more serves are to the side wall than the right side.From the right side there are 14% more serves to the "T".60% of the serve-return are straight shots.90% of the returns are effective.Players on the left side serve 15% down the line more than players on the right side.Left side players execute more than 75% of their serve-return with a backhand shot.Girls use more backhand or cross court directions and the lob.With golden points, the set duration is shorter, the number of games increases, more breaks are made, there is a higher percentage of matched sets and 3-set matches.There is no gender difference between the match time and score.There are more break balls and the number of breaks in girls.From the semi-finals the number of games increases and the duration of the set is longer.

Sánchez-Alcaraz et al. (2020d)
1015 auctions of 8 WPT finals (4 men's and 4 women's), 20 players (10 men and 10 women) -Type of smash -Effectiveness: winning stroke, error and continuity -Hitting zone: side of the court and distance from the net -Direction of the stroke: down the line or cross court Bandeja is the most used shot, more in women (68.8%) than in men (55.7%).Men use the flat smash (26.6%) and the topspin (9.8%) more than women (17% and 4.9%, respectively).The off the wall smash is made more by women (9.3%) than men (7.9%).The predominant direction is down the line (52.9% in women and 59.4% in men).The middle area is the area where more strokes are made, exceeding 50% in both men and women.The off the wall smash is the shot with which most errors are made.The flat smash and the topspin offer more winners.The off the wall smash and the bandeja offer more continuity.
Articles  From the left side of the court, players hit 75% to the side wall in the Australian position and 85% in the traditional position.
From the right side, they serve 23.9% more to the side wall in the traditional position.From the right side, the serving pair wins between 55 and 59% of the points.From the left side, players win 8% more when serving to the "T" using the traditional serve.Players using the traditional serve win a higher percentage of points on the serve.The number of points won on the serve decreases as the match progresses.
Australian strategy loses 6% more points on the serve in the final set of the match compared to the second set.The flat smash is performed more by men (37.7%) than women (29.2%).Bandejas are made more by women (23.3%) than men (11.7%).60% of attacking shots to finish are between 2-6 m and 15-18% between 6-8 m.Flat smashes are performed by women (+70%) between 0-4 m and men (65%) between 4-8 m.Bandejas are made between 65 and 70% and between 6 and 8 m. 70% of volleys are made between 2 and 4 m.35% of volleys are winners.Zone 0-6m winning percentage is higher than the error.Zone 8-10 m error percentage is higher than the winner.There is a 26% increase in the number of balls to the fence by serving players.45% of the hits to the fence come from the center of the court, 10% more are made by the player on the right side.There is 60% continuity.Half of the shots to the fence occur in the first 10 strokes.Men make 9% more volleys and women 9% more overhead shots.On definite points, there is an 8% increase in winning shots to the fence compared to non-definite.Cross court strokes have an 8% higher chance of winning than down-the-line.Down-the-line shots have a 23% more chance of error than cross strokes.
Articles  The smash is the stroke that produces the most winning points (43%) along with volleys (28.4%),While the lob is the one that produces the least (0.03%).Groundstrokes are the strokes with most errors (30.2%), followed by volleys (30.2%) and lobs (14.8%In men's padel, the number of games in the second set is higher.The number of gold points in the second set is higher than in the third set regardless of the round.The winning pair earns more gold points.Girls win more gold points than boys.In the female category there is more equality in the score and a higher percentage of golden points.There is no difference in the gold point per round and match, but there is a difference in the percentage of games decided by the gold point.As the rounds progress, the men's padel is more equal with respect to the set score.

Escudero-Tena et al. (2022a)
5513 points (2645 men's and 2868 women's) corresponding to 91 sets from 38 WPT quarterfinals, semi-finals and finals -Category: male and female -Type of finish: winner and error -Type of the stroke -Number of strokes Men make 51.6% winners, with the smash (30.6%), forehand volley (14.2%) and backhand volley (15.6%) winning the most.Women get 48.4% of winners with the forehand volley (21.9%), smash (20.7%) and bandeja (15.7%).Male errors total 42.6%, the backhand volley (17.6%) and forehand (17.0%) are predominant.Women make 57.4% of errors with the bandeja (16.5%) and forehand volley (15.3%) as predominant.More points are won between the 6 th and the 10 th stroke, the longer the point the probability of winning decreases.Between the stroke 1 and 5, more errors are made, yet their number decreases as the number of strokes increases.The smash is the most frequent last shot in men's padel (36.6%) and women's padel (31.8%).In key moments, boys make more bandejas and smashes than groundstrokes.Boys make more errors and more winning points.More errors are made on the golden point in groundstrokes.More errors are made in non-key and key moments, but less in the golden point.In both genders, the most common errors are wall strokes.More errors are made than winning shots in both genders.
Journal of Human Kinetics, volume 89/2023 http://www.johk.plIn the net zone, around 20% of the strokes are executed in the central zone.In the middle and baseline, 20% more strokes are executed in the side areas.The backhand player makes more strokes in his zone of the court than the forehand player at the net.
Winners make 5% more hits at the net.
On the other hand, the duration of points is another important aspect to take into account when planning efforts in training and matches.The duration of point in professional players is between 12.5 and 13.5 s (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2021a).There are also differences according to age, being lower in U-18 (8.9 s) and U-16 (12 s) players (García-Benítez et al., 2018) and based on gender, being lower in male padel (12-13 s) compared to female padel (17 s) (Lupo et al., 2018).However, considering the distribution of the duration of the points, almost 50% last less than 10 s (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2021a).
Rest interval duration, together with the duration of the point, is an important aspect to be taken into account by players in order to control their efforts.In padel, rest intervals are determined in the rules, being 20 s between points and 90 s for side changes at the end of odd games (International Padel Federation, 2008).Rest intervals are not influenced by the difference in the score (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2019), nor according to age and gender, being on average between 14-15.5 s (García-Benítez et al., 2018).On the other hand, there are differences depending on the importance of the point as in the non-key moments of the match, rest intervals are less than 10 s, and in the key moments of the match, they range between 10 and 20 s (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2019).As the most important practical implication, these data related to the time structure in padel can help coaches and physical trainers to design exercises and workloads adapted to the duration of points and rest intervals in padel.

Number of Strokes
In terms of padel game actions, studies have indicated that an average of 985 and 1185 strokes are produced per match in the junior category (García-Benítez et al., 2018).In WPT matches, an average of 10 strokes per point are produced (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2021a), being higher in women's (12 strokes) than in men's padel (9.3-9.9 strokes) (Lupo et al., 2018).Regarding the distribution of the number of strokes per point, in approximately 60% of the points, 10 or fewer strokes are made between the four players.However, these data vary depending on the set number, since in the third set, there is a significant increase in the number of strokes per point, increasing the percentage of points with more than 15 strokes in relation to the first and second sets (Mellado-Arbelo et al., 2019).

Groundstrokes
With respect to the distribution of the strokes made at baseline, 80% of the strokes are backwall strokes (Conde-Ripoll et al., 2021).In addition, forehand strokes predominate over backhand ones (Courel-Ibáñez et al., 2019;Lupo et al., 2018).The use of the lob accounts for 50% of the total shots from the back court in men's padel (Conde-Ripoll et al., 2021;Courel-Ibáñez et al., 2019), while, in women's padel, the lob is used in 85.4% of the back court shots, making it the most used to achieve offensive positions (Escudero-Tena et al., 2020) and probably being the cause of the increase in playing time and duration of the point in the women's category.In addition, game actions performed at the back of the court influence the final result of the match.It has been observed that the losing pair makes a higher percentage of strokes during a match (Lupo et al., 2018) and 10% more errors in this area of the court than the winning pair (Ramón-Llín et al., 2022).

Net Strokes
The shots played in this zone are mainly offensive shots.It has been observed that points scored at the net account for about 80% of the total, and winners score 34% more points than losers in this offensive zone (Ramón-Llín et al., 2022).On the other hand, it has been observed that the losing pair in a match fails to achieve an attacking action in 47% of the points (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020a).Therefore, it seems that taking up and maintaining areas close to the net guarantee success in a padel match.Regarding the predominant strokes, according to Sánchez-Alcaraz et al. (2020a), the volley is the most used shot (approximately 25% of padel strokes are volleys), while smashes are the most used stroke to win a point, both in men's and women's padel (Escudero-Tena et al., 2022b;Lupo et al., 2018).With respect to the smash, the bandeja (offensive stroke, without a bounce, which is made over the head and on the dominant side of the player.In this shot, before hitting the ball, the player opens the face of the racket pointing upwards and hits with a slice effect.The impact point on the ball is lower than in the other smashes (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020d)) is the most used in both women (68.8%) and men (55.7%), with the flat and topspin smash being the most used in men and the off the wall smash in women (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020d, 2022a).

Serve
The serve represents approximately 10% of the total number of strokes in a padel match (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020b).It also provides the possibility of taking the initiative in the point, as it allows the player to reach the offensive position of the net before their opponents.With respect to the advantage of the servers in the point, a recent study established that, as more strokes are made in the point, the percentage of points won by the serving partner decreases, establishing that, in men, from the 12 th stroke of the point, the advantage of being a server disappears, being in women from points with more than 7 strokes onwards (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020b).In addition, gender comparison shows that men win more points in service situations than women (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020b).However, this percentage of points won by the partner on serve decreases as the match progresses, being significantly lower in the third set (Ramón-Llin et al., 2021a) probably due to the effects of fatigue on the server, who travels the longest distance per point in professional padel (Ramón-Llin, et al., 2021a).
On the other hand, according to Ramón-Llin et al. ( 2021), from the right side, the serving pair wins between 55 and 59% of the points and, from the left side, they win 8% more when they serve to the T. In addition, the effectiveness of the serve seems to be influenced by the tactical position of players (Ramón-Llín et al., 2021b).The results of the studies show that players win a higher percentage of points on the serve when using the traditional position versus the Australian position, especially in the third set (Ramón-Llín et al., 2021b).This greater effectiveness of the traditional position versus the Australian position in the serve may be influenced by the fact that the use of the Australian position forces the server to travel further and faster towards the net than when using a traditional position and that, at the time of the return, he/she is at a greater distance from the net than when using a traditional position.
Regarding the direction of the serve, it also seems to be influenced by the strategy of players when serving and by the side of the court where the serve is made.In general, serving to the side Journal of Human Kinetics, volume 89/2023 http://www.johk.plwall predominates, especially when serving from the left side of the court (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020b).In addition, from the left side of the court, 10% more serves to the side wall occur in the traditional position (85%) than in the Australian position (75%) (Ramón-Llin et al., 2021a).In contrast, from the right side of the court, the directions are slightly more balanced, with approximately 60% of serves going to the side wall and 40% to the "T" (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020b).However, these data also vary depending on the tactical position of players, with 23.9% more serves to the side wall in the traditional position (Ramón-Llin et al., 2021a).

Return of the Serve
With respect to the return of the serve, it is a stroke that is highly effective, as in a professional padel match, players miss only 5% of the returns.Considering the characteristics of the return, in general, backhand returns predominate over forehand ones (63% vs. 37%), down the line returns over cross-court returns (70% vs. 30%) and straight returns over lobs (60% vs. 40%) (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020b).There are differences in the type of returns depending on the gender of players.In women's padel, there are 12% more backhand returns, 10% more cross-court returns and 13% more lob returns than in men's padel (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020b).
Regarding the direction of the return, players direct the return to the server or to the server's partner depending on two main factors: the direction of the serve and the position adopted by players on the serve.In the Australian position, returners direct 3 out of 4 returns to the server when the serve is to the glass, mainly looking for the gap in the court with a down the line return.However, when the serve is to the middle, there are 10% more returns intercepted by the server's partner, due to the coverage of the middle of the court.In the traditional position, when the serve is to the "T", 50% of the returns are hit by the server and 50% by the server's partner, while when the serve is to the glass, 10% more returns are hit by the server's partner than those hit by the server (Ramón-Llín et al., 2019).
On the other hand, knowing what type of the return is more likely to be hit by opponents depending on whether they serve to the "T" or to the side wall is essential for anticipation and preparation processes.Sánchez-Alcaraz et al. (2020b) have observed how the direction (downthe-line or cross-court) and the height of the return (lob or straight) vary depending on the direction of the serve (to the "T" or to the glass).Regarding the direction of the serve-return, 66% of the servereturns are played down the line when the serve is directed to the side wall.However, when the serve is directed to the "T", approximately the same number of returns are down the line as cross-court.Regarding the height of the return, when the serve hits to the side wall, players perform approximately the same number of straight returns as lobs.However, when the serve goes to the "T", almost 7 out of 10 returns are lobs, as returners are probably in a more comfortable situation when hitting and look to lob more effectively than when they are forced to return a serve to the side wall.

Court Areas
Several studies have divided each side of the padel court into three zones (net, middle and baseline), according to the distance to the net.The baseline and the middle court zone is where a higher percentage of strokes occur in a padel match (Courel-Ibáñez et al., 2019;Lupo et al., 2018;Mellado-Arbelo et al., 2019;Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020d).However, it is in the net zone where the highest percentage of winning shots occurs, which decreases as players move away from the net (Courel-Ibáñez et al., 2019).In addition, it seems that at the back court players tend to hit closer to the corners, leaving more space in the center, while in the net zone more shots are hit in the central area, leaving more space the right and the left side (Courel-Ibáñez et al., 2019).
On the other hand, with respect to the percentage of play of the right and left side players, a similar involvement has been observed in a padel match.However, there is between 10% and 15% more involvement of the left side player in the penultimate and last shot of the point (Ramón-Llín et al., 2022;Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2023b), thus it seems that this player assumes more responsibility in the definition of the points.These data can serve as a reference for coaches and players for better decision making and better positioning on the court.

Effectiveness of Strokes
Despite the fact that padel is a sport in Articles published in the Journal of Human Kinetics are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.which as few errors as possible must be played, unforced errors represent the majority of the final points (44.9%), followed by winning points (38.4%) and forced errors (16.7%) (Escudero-Tena et al., 2022b;Mellado-Arbelo et al., 2019).In addition, girls make a higher percentage of errors (57.4%) than winning strokes (42.6%) (Escudero-Tena et al., 2022a).The effectiveness of the last shot seems to have a significant influence on the outcome of the match.The winning pair hits 20% more winners than errors and, on the contrary, the losing pair commits 12% more errors than winners (Ramón-Llin et al., 2020b;Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2022c).
In both genders, the most common errors occur from the baseline, with the wall strokes and groundstrokes (Escudero-Tena et al., 2022b;Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2022c).The forehand double wall and the off the wall smash are the ones where most unforced errors are made, while the forehand back wall and the backhand double wall are the ones where most forced errors are made (Mellado-Arbelo et al., 2019).When players are in the net area, in men's padel, the backhand volley (17.6%) is the stroke with the most errors, followed by the forehand volley (17.0%).On the other hand, in women's padel, the bandeja (16.5%) and the forehand volley (15.3%) are the strokes with which most errors are committed (Escudero-Tena et al., 2022a).
With respect to the winning shots, most of them are hit from the net area, and the smash is the technical gesture with which professional players win the highest percentage of points, both in men's and women's padel (Escudero-Tena et al., 2022a;Courel-Ibáñez et al., 2019;Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2022c).Regarding the type of the smash, men win a higher percentage of points with the flat and topspin smash, while women use more of the bandeja (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020d, 2022c).Finally, cross-court shot trajectories seem to be more effective in winning the point or producing the opponent's error than down the line trajectories (Ramón-Llin et al., 2022).

Direction of Strokes
In relation to the direction of strokes in padel, in general terms, 57.5% of the strokes are cross-court (Mellado-Arbelo et al., 2019).In addition, 20% more cross-court strokes occur in the last two strokes of the point (Ramón-Llín et al., 2022).Regarding the side of play, backhand players play more cross-court shots than forehand players (65.8% vs. 61.9%).Considering the area of the court, in the net area more cross-court shots are hit (67.5%) than in the baseline (61.7%) (Ramón-Llin et al., 2020b).However, with the smash, the predominant direction is parallel versus crosscourt, both in men's (59.4% vs. 40.6%)and women's padel (52.9% vs. 41.1%)(Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2020d).

Movement of Players
In relation to players' movements around the court, advanced padel players cover an average of 3000 m per match, of which 50.8% are done when the ball is in play (Ramón-Llín et al., 2020a).Overall, in approximately 40% of padel points, players cover distances of less than 8 m.However, it has been observed that these values of the distance covered vary depending on variables such as the score, the duration of the match, and the performance level of players.When players are at a higher level or the score is more even, the distance covered by players increases.Advanced level players cover approximately 4 m more per point than amateur players (11.77 m vs. 8.30 m) (Ramón-Llín et al., 2020a).Finally, the serving player is the one who covers the most distance per point, followed by the returning player, while partners of the serving and returning players are the ones who cover the least distance per point, both at the advanced and the beginner level (Ramón-Llín et al., 2020a, 2020c).
Finally, the adoption of different serving partner strategies also affects movements made by players.In this sense, a study by Ramón-Llin et al. (2021) analyses the distance covered by players when serving from the Australian position versus a traditional one.The results showed that the use of the Australian position forces the server to cover more distance and at a faster speed in his or her movement towards the net than when using a conventional position.On the other hand, when using a traditional position, in addition to covering less distance to the net, the server will be closer to the net and his or her side wall at the moment when the opposing player hits the return.These data may be related to the results that have shown a lower percentage of points won on the serve with the Australian position compared to the traditional one, since, at the moment of the third shot of the point, the server is further away from the net and Journal of Human Kinetics, volume 89/2023 http://www.johk.plhis side wall, and the distance to the net, as explained above, is a variable that correlates significantly with the effectiveness of the shot (the further away, the more errors are made)

Match Score Studies
Studies related to the score in padel have shown that, in men's padel, more than 70% of matches are played to 2 sets, while in women's padel this percentage drops to below 70% (Sánchez-Alcaraz et al., 2021b).Furthermore, in men's padel almost 50% of the sets are matched (score 6-4 or more), with a higher percentage of tiebreaks than in women's padel (Muñoz et al., 2022).It was also observed that in professional padel an average of almost 22 games are played per match, and almost 10 games per set, with significant differences between men's and women's padel (Muñoz et al., 2022).
However, the data related to the scoreboard varies from 2020 onwards, where the golden point rule was incorporated.A study carried out by Sánchez-Alcaraz et al. (2020c) has found that the use of the golden point results in slight reductions in set length (approx.3 min), in addition to a higher number of breaks and more games per set and per match.
In addition, more golden points are played in women's than in men's padel and, according to the number of sets, the number of golden points increases in the second set compared to the third set.On the other hand, the efficiency in gold points can determine the outcome of the match, as the winning pair of the match wins significantly more golden points than the losing pair (Muñoz et al., 2022).Finally, the round of the tournament also affects the match score, as it has been observed that as the rounds of play progress, the number of games per match increases, thus the equality also increases.Thus, both the physical and psychological demands in the final rounds seem to be greater than in previous rounds.Therefore, good physical preparation and the ability to cope with these sets and close matches could be an important key to success in the tournament.

Limitations and Future Directions o Research
This study has certain limitations that should be taken into account when interpreting the results.Although the vast majority of the selected studies have a very large sample of strokes and actions, being representative for the analysis and pooling of results, others only analyze a small and specific number of players, which makes it difficult to compare the results between studies and does not allow to generalize the results.Furthermore, it has been observed that some performance analysis topics, such as the study of scoring, currently present very few studies, thus future research should evaluate these variables in greater depth.

Conclusions
This is the first study that has carried out a systematic review of the analysis of performance in professional padel that brings together the research of the last five years.The results of these studies have made it possible to define the time structure of padel, its technical-tactical actions, the movements and distances covered by its players and the analysis of the scoreboard.These results have shown important differences in these four lines of research depending on the gender and the level of players, the side and the zone of play as well as the time of the match.In this way, the information gathered in this study will allow coaches, physical trainers and players to design training sessions based on the specific characteristics of padel, adapted to the demands of competition.Furthermore, it will contribute to the application of feedback and decision making based on statistics and match data.

ORCID iD:
Iván Martín-Miguel: 0000-0002-1894-3651 Articles published in the Journal of Human Kinetics are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.
published in the Journal of Human Kinetics are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.
published in the Journal of Human Kinetics are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.
Articles published in the Journal of Human Kinetics are licensed under an open access Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.

Table 1 .
Classification of articles by the thematic area of study.

Table 1a .
Summary of performance analysis studies in padel.

Table 2b .
Summary of performance analysis studies in padel.

Table 3c .
Summary of performance analysis studies in padel.Players cover an average of 3000 m per game of which 50.8% is when the ball is in play.They cover an average of 11 m per point and 80 m per game.Medium level players cover more distance, by 400 m, than high-level players and 900 m more than low-level players in the active phase.Mid-level players play the most points, almost 31 more than low-level players and 22 more than high-level players.There is a positive correlation between the number of points and the distance travelled.matches are resolved in the second set, with no difference between men and women.In the men's category, there are more equal sets and more tie-breaks than in the women's category, as well as more games per set and match.In the women's category, there are more matched sets in masters than in open.In the men's category, the percentage of matched sets is higher in each round, increasing in the semi-final and final.There is no difference between open and master in the set percentage, being in master where it is more equal from the semi-finals onwards.
The lob is the most used (85.4%).In most cases, the defensive pair gets offensive positions (70.4%).The defensive pair performs a lob between the second and the sixth stroke.It causes continuity in the game leading to more position changes.Journal of Human Kinetics, volume 89/2023 http://www.johk.pl

Table 4d .
Summary of performance analysis studies in padel.
There are differences in service tactic formation according to the player's level.Beginners use the traditional position in more than 80% of the points.High level players use both tactical positions interchangeably, but preferably the Australian position.The serving pair wins more points than returners in both levels.More than 70% of the rallies are resolved in the first 9 s.More points are earned with the traditional tactic position.are with one wall.The backwall shot is the predominant stroke (+80%), followed by off the wall (+10%).The predominant side of the body is the forehand with 13% more than the backhand.17% more winners are obtained with the forehand and 17% more errors with the backhand.Straight strokes (51%) are similar to lobs (49%).90% of groundstrokes provide continuity.There are 5% more errors than winners.30% more winners are made when the ball comes from the back wall.When the ball is side wall or double wall the error percentage increases.

Table 5e .
Summary of performance analysis studies in padel ). Lobs and groundstrokes have more errors than winners and smashes more winners than errors.56% of the winning shots are made at the net.42% of the errors are made on the baseline.1% of the penultimate stroke is on the baseline and the last stroke, 60% is on the net.There are 20% more cross court strokes than down-the-line shot in the last two strokes of the point.There is 10 and15% more participation of the player on the left in the penultimate and the last stroke of the point, respectively.At the net, 82.7% of the winning points are hit against 46.5% of the total errors.The winning pair makes 48.1% of errors in the baseline and the losing pair makes 58.4%.

Table 6f .
Summary of performance analysis studies in padel