Home › Puzzle › Your first weeks of padel: what is the one wall habit to build?
Your first weeks of padel: what is the one wall habit to build?
The first wall habit: let the ball go past you, turn, and hit it off the glass. It feels wrong for two weeks and then it is padel.
You are new to padel from tennis. Of everything about the walls, what is the one thing to practise first?
The first wall habit: let the ball go past you, turn, and hit it off the glass. It feels wrong for two weeks and then it is padel.
Why
Players who arrive from tennis have one instinct that padel has to overwrite: chasing the ball before it gets behind them. On a padel court, a ball that goes past you toward the glass is not lost. It is coming back, and usually to a better position than you could have reached before the wall. The habit of letting it go, turning side-on, and playing the rebound is the foundation of every other piece of wall play. It feels unnatural for the first few sessions and becomes automatic soon after; everything else about the walls builds on it.
What this means at your level
Beginner
In your next session, deliberately let every deep ball hit the back wall before you play it. Even the ones you could reach. Feel where they come out.
Intermediate
Once the back wall is comfortable, add the side wall, then the corners. One surface at a time.
Advanced
Coaching a beginner? Feed slow balls to the back glass from the net and let them hit twenty rebounds before you say a word about technique.
Common questions
You are new to padel from tennis. Of everything about the walls, what is the one thing to practise first?
Letting the ball go past you and playing it off the glass. The first wall habit: let the ball go past you, turn, and hit it off the glass. It feels wrong for two weeks and then it is padel. Players who arrive from tennis have one instinct that padel has to overwrite: chasing the ball before it gets behind them. On a padel court, a ball that goes past you toward the glass is not lost. It is coming back, and usually to a better position than you could have reached before the wall. The habit of letting it go, turning side-on, and playing the rebound is the foundation of every other piece of wall play. It feels unnatural for the first few sessions and becomes automatic soon after; everything else about the walls builds on it.
Why not hitting the ball into your own wall on purpose?
The contra-pared is an emergency shot. Learning it before the basic rebound is the wrong order.
What should a beginner do here?
In your next session, deliberately let every deep ball hit the back wall before you play it. Even the ones you could reach. Feel where they come out.
How does this change for an advanced player?
Coaching a beginner? Feed slow balls to the back glass from the net and let them hit twenty rebounds before you say a word about technique.
Puzzles like this one
The ball is coming off the back glass. When do you hit it?
Move back with the ball, let it pass you, hit it in front of your body.
beginnerThe ball bounced then hit your own back glass. Still in play?
One bounce on the floor, then any number of walls. Only a second floor bounce ends the point.
intermediateA smash is coming at you. What is your job?
You are not trying to win this ball. You are trying to still be in the point two shots from now.