Two roots, one decision policy, and every shot derived from them. This is the written companion to the interactive diagram.
Everything below is a theorem derived from these. If a shot doesn't trace back to one of them, it's an ego shot.
You can't win by displacement — only by degrading their next ball.
Glass walls turn would-be winners into rebounds — the rally continues. You rarely win by putting the ball out of reach; you win by steadily degrading the quality of your opponent's next shot until they make the error.
The physics: a ball off floor-then-back-glass returns at ~70–75% of its original speed, arriving higher and slower (it "sits up"). Because floor and glass are perpendicular, that ~25–30% loss is the same whatever angle it came in at.
Genuine winners do exist but are rare: a ball that dies in a double-bounce before reaching the wall, one struck out over the fence, or a sharp side-wall angle out of reach.
Hitting down dictates. Hitting up concedes.
A ball met above net height can be driven downward — hard to defend. A ball met below net height must be lifted on a rising arc — inherently defensive.
Height pairs with distance to the net: the same high ball is only a lob from the back wall, but a smash near the service line. Whoever hits down sets the next state; whoever hits up just survives it.
One sequence, one spatial rule. The branches are just its cases.
Win the net → hold it → pressure → finish only when the ball comes up.
The one sequence that respects both roots at every step:
Each phase lowers risk before you take a finishing risk, so the finish is nearly free. Skipping straight to the finish is the single most common error — it's the highest-risk shot from the lowest-percentage position.
The net team hits down and steals time.
The team at the net meets balls above net height before they drop, and takes reaction time away from opponents.
Pro match-coding data: ~80% of points are finished at the net, and net-controlling players make ~49% fewer unforced errors. (This is the share of points finished at the net, not a clean win-rate — but the advantage is large and real.)
Can't go through them? Go over them.
You can't reliably pass a good net pair along the floor (walls + two players cover it), so you go over them. A deep lob forces the net team to turn, retreat and hit up — they lose the net, you take it.
Prioritise depth (land it in the back third, ideally dying near the glass). A short lob is the most-punished shot in padel — a free smash. Default cross-court: it's the longest, safest line.
You and your partner share one rope.
Picture a ~3–4m rope joining you to your partner: both up, or both back — never a lasting front/back split.
Opponents attack the seam between you, so keep it closed. The rope tightens toward 3–4m to defend the middle and opens toward ~5m to cover width on a 10m court. A one-up-one-back split is an unstable state to fix fast, not a position to sit in.
Each branch hangs off a root or trunk node, so nothing is arbitrary.
How you climb from defence to attack.
The two low-risk ways to take height away from the net team and climb to the net yourself: go over them (lob) or make them play up from below (chiquita).
High, deep (back third), cross-court, with a touch of backspin so it sits and dies rather than bouncing up smashable. Then advance to the net with your partner. Depth matters more than height.
A slow, low ball that dies near the net at the incoming team's feet, forcing them to volley up from below the cord. The lob's sibling: when a lob isn't on, you take their height from below instead of over the top. Disguise it like a drive.
The overhead family — control beats power.
Since power just gets returned by the glass, the overheads are mostly about keeping the net, not ending the point. A decision tree from safe (bandeja) to risky (smash).
The default overhead. A sliced, sub-maximal shot: contact in front and to your side at about head height, sideways stance, like serving a tray forward. Its job is to hold the net, not win — you place it deep and recover forward. About 69% of pro overheads are this shot. Use it on deep lobs.
The bandeja's more aggressive cousin: higher contact, more closed face, heavier side-slice that skids low and accelerates off the side glass. Flatter and faster — used to ramp pressure when the ball is a touch more comfortable.
An emergency hook smash for when the ball is behind your shoulder line and you can't get fully under it but still want to attack. Snap down — don't scoop.
The finisher — and a trap if used early. Only on a short, high, central sitter with you balanced and inside the service line. Smashing the wrong ball just hands back the net.
Smashes hit hard enough that the ball bounces, kicks off the glass and flies out of the court. The numbers are the fence height cleared: por tres clears the ~3m fence (often angled out a side wall); por cuatro the ~4m back fence. It's geometry over raw power.
Turn 'lost' balls into clean resets.
The biggest skill that doesn't exist in any wall-less sport: read the rebound, then play it. The ball lost energy to the floor and glass — let it come to you.
The back-court default: let a hard or low ball rebound off the glass, then play the settled ball. It has lost ~25–30% of its pace and sits up into a comfortable zone. Exception: balls that will die before the glass (short, slow, sliced, or into the soft mesh) — take those early.
How far to stand off the back wall scales with pace, roughly linearly: about +0.65m per +10 km/h. Stand ~3.3m off for a 50 km/h ball, ~5.9m for a 90 km/h ball. Soft/sliced balls die at the glass — step in. Read the pace off the racket.
The glass footwork: drop-step away from the wall, turn side-on, open a window in front of your hitting shoulder, and let the rebound finish in front of you. Don't stand still and reach.
Back-wall first (“closing”) → the ball rebounds toward the centre — the easy read. Side-wall first (“opening”) → it stays out wide and runs away — the hard one. A ball passing close to your hitting shoulder closes; one passing well wide opens. Wait for the wall to finish before you swing.
When a ball rebounds off your own back glass at a comfortable height (often a lob that's come off the wall), step in and drive it down low (rasante) at their feet — turning defence into counterattack. Meet it around waist-to-shoulder height, don't let it drop.
Where you stand and how you volley.
Holding the net well is mostly position and a compact, firm block — not big swings.
Stand ~2–3.5m off the net (around the middle of the service box), racket up like a shield, and split-step on the opponent's contact. Crowding the net gets you lobbed and leaves no time on a hard ball at your feet.
Two volleys, never a full stroke. Block: firm wrist, almost no swing — absorbs pace and redirects. Punch: a short jab with weight forward — attacks a sitter. Contact in front, compact.
Where to aim, and why.
Aim is geometry. Build with the middle and cross-court; finish into the open court only once it's truly open.
The safe default. The diagonal is the court's longest line (22.4m vs 20m, +11.8% landing window) and crosses the net at its lowest point (0.88m centre vs 0.92m posts → ~50% more clearance on a flat drive). It lands successfully about twice as often as down-the-line.
Aim between the opponents to collapse their angles (they can mostly only reply straight) and trigger a “whose ball?” hesitation. It's a build shot, not usually the finisher.
The open court is a finishing zone, not a building one. Use it once an opponent is displaced, or the ball can pass them low and fast before the wall recovers it. On a neutral ball it's a trap — the wall saves it and you've opened your own court.
Two bodies, one policy.
Padel is a coordination game. The point is rarely lost by a bad shot — it's lost in the gap between two players who didn't move or call together.
Agree in advance who takes the middle (a fast ball is too quick to negotiate). Resolve by an early call → then role/proximity (closer or stronger volleyer) → then momentum (the player moving forward). The middle is the “zone of divorce”; the call is the reliable fix.
While your partner is committed to a shot, you are the only mobile defender — pre-move to seal the likely reply. When my partner hits, I move; I never just watch.
When your partner goes up for an overhead, step toward the centre and half a step forward, racket up. The point is usually finished by the covering partner, not the smasher.
A tiny, loud vocabulary, used early: mine / yours / leave / bounce / switch / lob. The call doubles as a movement command — "mine" tells your partner to rotate and cover. A late call causes collisions.
Conventionally the left-side player is the finisher (forehand swinging over the middle) and the right-side player is the playmaker/defender. A lefty + righty pair (lefty right, righty left) puts both forehands in the centre — a strong setup, at the cost of middle-ball ambiguity.
Swapping sides is legitimate, not a failure: reactive (assume the new side after a wide chase, since recovering is slower than switching) or planned (point your finisher at the weaker opponent).
With a weaker partner, redistribute by difficulty not volume — take the hard balls, keep them in simple central situations. With a stronger partner, be reliable not heroic — reset, lob, get balls back, call loudly.