Home › Puzzle › A hard, deep drive is coming to your backhand. Take it early or use the glass?
A hard, deep drive is coming to your backhand. Take it early or use the glass?
Hard and deep: let the glass take the pace and play it after. Soft and short: take it early.
You are defending at the back. A hard, deep, flat drive comes to your backhand corner. Do you hit it before the glass or after?
Hard and deep: let the glass take the pace and play it after. Soft and short: take it early.
Why
The back glass is a padel player's ally against pace. A hard drive that reaches the glass comes back out with most of its speed, giving you a ball at a comfortable height, a fraction more time, and a full swing rather than a block. Taking that ball early means a rushed shot from below the level of the net. The rule of thumb is pace and depth decide it: hard and deep, use the wall; slow and short, take it before it dies. The decision has to be made as the ball crosses the net, which is why reading the opponent's racket speed is a defensive skill.
What this means at your level
Beginner
If the ball is coming hard, step out of the way and let it hit the glass. It will come back to you.
Intermediate
Turn your shoulders as the ball passes you, watch it hit the glass, and hit it as it comes out on the way down. Do not swing at it on the way up.
Advanced
Against sliced drives that die off the glass, you have to take them before the wall. Read the spin from the racket face: flat or topspin goes to the glass, heavy slice is played early.
Common questions
You are defending at the back. A hard, deep, flat drive comes to your backhand corner. Do you hit it before the glass or after?
Off the glass. The pace comes back to you with time. Hard and deep: let the glass take the pace and play it after. Soft and short: take it early. The back glass is a padel player's ally against pace. A hard drive that reaches the glass comes back out with most of its speed, giving you a ball at a comfortable height, a fraction more time, and a full swing rather than a block. Taking that ball early means a rushed shot from below the level of the net. The rule of thumb is pace and depth decide it: hard and deep, use the wall; slow and short, take it before it dies. The decision has to be made as the ball crosses the net, which is why reading the opponent's racket speed is a defensive skill.
Why not before the glass, always take the ball as early as possible?
Taking a hard deep ball early on the backhand means a rushed half-volley. The wall is there to slow the point down.
What should a beginner do here?
If the ball is coming hard, step out of the way and let it hit the glass. It will come back to you.
How does this change for an advanced player?
Against sliced drives that die off the glass, you have to take them before the wall. Read the spin from the racket face: flat or topspin goes to the glass, heavy slice is played early.
Puzzles like this one
The 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.
beginnerThe 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.
intermediateYour partner got pulled wide. Where do you stand?
The pair moves like one body. When your partner is pulled wide, you take the middle.