Like many other padel players, I was originally a tennis player. I make no claims at being very good at tennis, but I started in junior school and continued through high school. I played social tennis till I was about 30. At the risk of giving my age away, I started tennis when wooden tennis rackets were still a thing. When I started playing padel I soon realized that I couldn’t play it just like tennis. These are the changes I needed to make.
As a tennis player coming to the game of padel, resist the urge to hit powerful topspin shots as they will bounce off the wall and give your opponents an easier shot. Instead, play controlled shots and volleys and avoid trying to play winners on each shot. Invite your opponents to make the errors.
Let’s break down these tips into detail so that you can easily convert your tennis skills onto the padel court.
1. Learn To Play Off The Walls As Soon As Possible When Starting Padel
At first glance, this might seem obvious but hear me out. When I first started playing padel I struggled with the way the ball bounced off the walls.
At first, when a ball went past me I’d assume I’d lost the point as I would in tennis only to see the ball bounce back into what would be a playable position if I had taken a few steps back.
The next mistake I made was running too far back on the court chasing a ball that had gone past me. The ball would then bounce off the wall and go past me a second time in the opposite direction.
I also played squash in high school as well as for a couple of years after high school and that helped me deal with the ball bouncing off walls once I got accustomed to how far the ball would bounce off the walls.
The way that you improve the ability to play off the walls of the court is by building confidence.
A general rule of thumb that you can apply when you first try padel is to allow nearly all balls that bounce behind the service line to first bounce off the wall before playing them. You will notice two things during your first games of padel when you do this. The first is that you will get a sense of how far forward from the wall the ball will bounce. The second thing that you will notice is the extra time it gives you to get into position for your shot.
I admit that you might lose a few points at the beginning by doing this, but that sacrifice will be balanced by a rapid improvement in your padel.
2. Forget About Your Power Shots When Playing Padel
When I started playing padel I mistakenly assumed that I should play my shots with a similar amount of power to those I had played in tennis.
The first reason why this didn’t work is that the padel court is smaller than a tennis court. Therefore by playing my shots with an equivalent amount of power I was hitting more balls out than I was getting in.
Once I had dialed back my power to a level I was keeping the ball in play I noticed the second and third problems. When I hit the ball hard it would bounce back further from the wall. This allowed my opponents to move in closer to the net before they had even played their shot. So, instead of gaining the advantage of the net position for my partner and me, I was gifting it to my opponents.
The final problem that hitting the ball hard created for me was the topspin. In tennis, we are taught to hit the ball hard and with topspin. When I took my topspin to the padel court, that topspin turned into a disadvantage.
My topspin caused the ball to kick up into the air when it bounced off the wall. So, not only was my powerful shot rebounding far from the wall, but my topspin was making the ball kick higher into the air, giving my opponents a nice soft ball at a good height to play with exact precision.
The solution is to ease back on the power so that the ball has less rebound off the wall. In tennis, you needed the power to get the ball past your opponent for a winner. That strategy doesn’t work in padel.
3. Focus On Playing Your Padel Shots With More Control
This tip follows on from what we have just been discussing. What you should rather do instead of using your power and topspin, is play shots with a flatter racket and use more control in the way you play.
The moment I started doing this my success rate with my padel shots improved. As I mentioned, padel is played on a smaller court so I had to be more sensible and strategic in my shot selection.
Instead of just hitting the ball, I try to place the ball in difficult-to-reach spots on the court until there is some sort of error from my opponents.
4. Move On The Court As A Pair With Your Padel Partner
Strategic court position is something else that is very different between padel and tennis. I can remember from my tennis playing days that when I played doubles one of us would cover the net while the other would cover the baseline. That is how we would play most of the time. Sure, by playing like that we would have large areas of the court that we didn’t cover, but because the court was bigger it gave us the additional time we needed to get to most balls.
Because the padel court is smaller, I soon discovered that I didn’t have the time to reach the ball when it was played down the open diagonal that was left open when I was at the back, on the left, while my partner was at the front, on the right.
After losing a fair share of points with that misguided strategy, I learned that in padel we move together as a pair with our partner.
My partner and I would either both be at the back or both be at the net. We would move forward or backward together so that we could ensure that the dreaded diagonal gap would not be there for our opponents to use.
In addition, my partner and I move side to side on the court as a unit.
For instance, if we are both at the net and I play a volley into the corner on my side of the court, I will move toward the sideline to cover a shot that might come back tight against the line. At the same time as I move across to cover my line, my partner will come across to cover a shot that might come back in the center. That way we can eliminate gaps as much as possible.
5. Try To Not Hit Outright Winners When Playing Padel As A Tennis Player
This final tip for tennis players that want to try a game of padel actually combines elements of what we have already discussed into something practical that you can apply the next time you step onto a padel court.
If you are at the back of the court and your opponents are at the net, either play your shot carefully to bounce in line with your opponents’ feet or lob the ball over their heads. In both cases, your objective is to push them back from the net so that you and your partner can move up to the net.
Once you and your partner have been able to occupy the net position, continue with controlled volleys into the corners, or if your opponents are back in the corners then a controlled volley down the center will work too.
If your opponents play a weak lob, resist the urge to play a very aggressive, powerful smash and instead play a controlled smash that you can aim into a corner or into a space between your opponents.
What I find works really well if I aim my controlled smash into the corner is to aim so that the ball impacts the side wall before the back wall. If my opponents begin to anticipate that then I’ll change my shot into the corner to impact the back wall before the sidewall.
As tempting as it will be to use your tennis-style power shots, resist that temptation and use controlled shots to push your opponents out of position and force the error from them.