Shot preparation – Padel

One of the biggest mistakes in padel is that players, from beginners to advanced players, don’t prepare their shots right. If your shot preparation is not right, your technique will suffer. So it is important to get this right first before thinking about other complicated techniques for the shots.

Three steps

You can break the shot preparation down to three steps:

• Ready
  Ready is for the ready position. The ready position at net is your racket high and slightly vertical and the ready position in the back is with your racket down. Ready also means: being alert and expecting the ball. A common error is that when you’re at net and the ball goes to your partner, you will drop your racket and watch how your partner is going to returnthe ball.
• Read
  When you’re playing padel you have to read three main areas. The first one is the game situation. Are you attacking, are you defending and what your court position
  is are key. Now you can focus on your opponents and read them. What kind of shot are they going to play, are they attacking or defending and what is their tactic? When they are going to play their shot, you should analyze with how much speed, depth and height they’re going to play the ball
• React
  As soon as you see the ball coming from your opponents you should react. Make a split step and start to prepare for where the ball is coming. And the most important thing of react is: take your racket back early! If you wait till the ball is close to you, you are already too late and your shot won’t be as good as in the situation where you immediately put your racket back. Because if you do take your racket back, the only thing you then have to focus on is your shot.

The preparation is so important. If you prepare well for any shot then it will be much easier to learn the technique, regardless of what the shot is. You will be able to hit better shots if you prepare earlier.