Home › Puzzle › Your partner serves; a return lob is coming. Over whom?
Your partner serves; a return lob is coming. Over whom?
Read the return lob from the shoulder line at contact. Square to you: it is yours. Turned to the diagonal: it is the server's.
As the server's partner you see the returner opening the face for a lob. How do you tell if it is coming over you or over the server?
Read the return lob from the shoulder line at contact. Square to you: it is yours. Turned to the diagonal: it is the server's.
Why
The return lob most often goes cross-court over the server, but a returner who sees the net partner drifting toward the middle will lob down the line instead. The partner cannot wait for the ball to leave the racket: a lob over your head is behind you by then. The read is the returner's shoulders at contact: turned toward the cross-court diagonal, the lob is going over the server and the partner can shift to cover the middle; square to the partner's side, it is coming down the line and the partner is already turning to bandeja. One early step is worth more than any amount of speed.
What this means at your level
Beginner
When the returner lifts the ball, watch their shoulders. If they are facing you, the lob is coming to you: turn and move.
Intermediate
Take the first step as their racket meets the ball. If you have read it wrong, you have lost half a step; if you wait, you have lost two.
Advanced
Returners disguise lobs with late shoulder rotation. Against them, watch the racket face: open toward your side means down the line, whatever the shoulders said a moment earlier.
Common questions
As the server's partner you see the returner opening the face for a lob. How do you tell if it is coming over you or over the server?
Their shoulders at contact. Read the return lob from the shoulder line at contact. Square to you: it is yours. Turned to the diagonal: it is the server's. The return lob most often goes cross-court over the server, but a returner who sees the net partner drifting toward the middle will lob down the line instead. The partner cannot wait for the ball to leave the racket: a lob over your head is behind you by then. The read is the returner's shoulders at contact: turned toward the cross-court diagonal, the lob is going over the server and the partner can shift to cover the middle; square to the partner's side, it is coming down the line and the partner is already turning to bandeja. One early step is worth more than any amount of speed.
Why not wait until the ball is in the air and see?
By then the lob over you is already behind you. Read the body, not the ball.
What should a beginner do here?
When the returner lifts the ball, watch their shoulders. If they are facing you, the lob is coming to you: turn and move.
How does this change for an advanced player?
Returners disguise lobs with late shoulder rotation. Against them, watch the racket face: open toward your side means down the line, whatever the shoulders said a moment earlier.
Puzzles like this one
They lobbed you deep. Smash it or play the bandeja?
Deep ball, high hands: bandeja. The shot exists to keep you at the net, not to win the point.
beginnerThe ball is at your feet at the net. What now?
A ball below the net cannot be attacked. Block it deep and wait for one above the tape.
beginnerYou have served. Where do you go?
In padel you serve in order to get to the net. Serve, then go.