When playing racket sports like padel it’s natural that most players are more attracted to working on the attacking side of their game rather than the defensive one. They want to develop a wide range of strategies and shots that they can use to win points, which are both very nice things to have! However, it is an unfortunate truth that no matter what padel match you’re taking part in, your opponent is probably going to gain the upper hand at some point. And in these moments, it’s incredibly important that you know how to defend and keep yourself in the point. A player with no defensive capabilities is likely to lose the point as soon as their opponent gets into a dominant position, and this is a losing strategy in the long run.
When your opponents do get themselves into dominant positions in a rally, they will often be looking for any excuse to play the smash shot. The smash is probably the most attacking shot that a padel player can play, so if you can defend well against it, and maybe even turn it into a scoring opportunity for yourself, you will become a much tougher and more dangerous player to play against. In this post I’ll be giving you loads of advice that will help you do just that!
Here are 8 tips that will help you to defend against a smash in padel:
- Learn to anticipate by reading the game
- Get into the right position early
- Work well with your partner
- Get comfortable using the court exit
- Practice returning the smash from poor positions
- Work out the tendencies of your opponents
- Practice your winners near the net
- Look out for fakes!
In the rest of this post I’ll be explaining the tips above in more detail so that you know exactly what you need to do in order to improve this area of your game! Let’s get into it…
Learn To Anticipate By Reading The Game
When you’ve played and watched padel for a long time, you’ll find that you slowly become more in tune with the rhythms of the game and the types of shots that players will play in certain situations. When your team mate hits a shot, you’ll find that you instinctively know what kind of shot is available for your opponent to play in return, and you can position yourself and prepare yourself for that outcome.
Not many padel players know this, but as you play, your brain is building up a huge store of information from every padel match you take part in. Every time you see your opponent react in a certain way to a shot, your brain stores this information and can call on it in the future. For example, if your teammate lobs the ball up in the air and your opponent plays the smash, your brain will take a note of the height and angle of the attempted lob and remember that this resulted in your opponent playing the smash shot. As you see the same thing happen more and more, your brain will be able to access this information much quicker because it has seen the same series of events so many times. The quicker you are able to access that information, the quicker your brain can send a signal to your muscles in order to begin your movement of responding to the ball. This is how the best players make it look like they have so much time to react to the ball – they are anticipating and preparing for the opposition’s shots much faster than us mere mortals!
A simple way to spot that your opponent is going to play the smash is by watching their body movements very closely. If you see them standing underneath the ball, waiting for it to drop with a slight bend in their legs, then there’s an excellent chance that their next movement will be to propel themselves upwards in order to smash the ball as it comes down towards them. The more you see this during a game, the better you’ll get at spotting it.
So, if you want to learn to anticipate your opponent’s shots better, you have to play a lot of padel. Only then will your brain be able to build up a knowledge base big enough to help you anticipate what shots your opponent is going to play the moment the ball leaves your/your teammates racket! You’ll also be able to spot small details in your opponent’s technique that tell you they’re about to play certain shots like the smash. The more you play, the more prepared you’ll be and the faster you’ll learn to react.
Get Into The Right Position Early
When your opponent is about to play the smash shot, there are certain areas on the court where you should be aiming to position yourself. If you can get into these positions early, you’ll give yourself the best chance of reaching the ball and returning it. So, before we discuss what those positions actually are, let’s look briefly at the flight path of most smash shots so that we can see exactly where on the court the ball will travel and land. Once you’ve got your head around this it’ll be easy to understand where you should aim to stand in order to return the ball.
Most smash shots will be aimed so that they land around the service line. By landing the ball here, the player hitting the smash will hope that the ball gains enough height once it hits the glass that it travels over their opponent’s heads and lands back on their side of the court. To put it simply, they want to smash the ball hard enough so that their opponents never get a chance to return the ball. When thinking about the perfect smash shot, most players will want the flight path of the ball to look something like the one in the diagram below.
From looking at the diagram, you should be able to identify the best place to stand if you want to return the smash. You should be aiming to position yourself close to the net, so that you can jump to reach the ball as it is dropping towards your opponent’s side of the court. When the smash is first hit, the ball is going to be travelling at a very high speed – making the ball much harder to return at this point. However, once it has bounced on the court and then off the glass it will have slowed down considerably – this is the point at which you ideally want to return the ball.
Therefore, when you see your opponent is about to play the smash, you should run forwards and get in position close to the net rather than trying to return the ball immediately. As you do this, turn your body and get your eyes on the ball. By doing this, you will be able to read the direction of the shot as it rebounds off the glass and adjust your position on the court accordingly. Then, once you’re in the right place, you’ll be able to jump up and hit the ball onto your opponent’s side of the court. The diagram below should give you an idea of how this process looks when executed by a professional player!
Work Well With Your Partner
I’m sure most of you will be aware that the majority of padel matches take place with two players on each team. The most effective partnerships work incredibly well together to maximise their coverage of the court, which minimises the chance that they can be caught out by shots like the smash or drop shots. If both players on a team have exactly the same ideas and move to cover the same areas of the court, then the opposition players will find it incredibly easy to win points against them due to large areas of the court being left undefended. Therefore, a player needs to read what their partner is doing and position themselves well to defend the area of the court that they have vacated.
So, let’s apply this thinking to defending the smash shot. If one player anticipates the smash shot and rushes up to the net to try to intercept it as we discussed in the previous section, then the other player shouldn’t really be doing the same thing. The other player should ideally be hanging back somewhere near the service line, ready to cover the fake smash or any other shots that are hit a little slower towards the back of the court. You can see this difference in positioning between players defending a shot in the picture below!
Good relationships with padel teammates take time to build, so you’ll have to spend plenty of time playing with certain individuals until you feel that you understand each other’s preferences and play styles. Once you have this understanding, you will find that you need to communicate during points a lot less. When the smash is coming, you will instinctively know who is going to cover the front of the court and who is going to hang back. When you first start playing with a new partner, make sure you stay vocal during your matches and practice sessions as this can help avoid silly mistakes like both players assuming that the other one is going to try to play the ball.
Get Comfortable Using The Court Exits
If your opponent plays the smash particularly well and angles it towards the sides of the court, there is an excellent chance that the ball will bounce over the side wall of the court. In padel, it is possible for players to leave the court through the exits on either side in order to return the ball before it bounces on the floor outside the court. If the player can hit the ball back onto the opponent’s side of the court (either by hitting it back over the wall or back through the doors), the rally will continue. Exiting the court in this way and returning the ball is something that you will need to get comfortable doing if you want to be able to defend against all types of smash shots!
Although my explanation above may sound pretty simple, exiting the court and returning the ball definitely isn’t an easy thing to do during a match! You first have to anticipate the smash shot as I explained earlier in this post, and then you have to move yourself over towards the court exit as quickly as possible. Then you need to swiftly exit the court and get to the ball before it bounces. Once you get there, you have the task of getting the ball back into play. All of these movements need to take place in around 2-3 seconds, so you’ll need to be incredibly fast on your feet.
If you’re a serious padel player and you’re trying to improve your ability to do this, I’d recommend working on it during your practice sessions. Try getting a partner to hit the smash shot and tell them to make sure that the ball goes over the side wall when they do it. As they prepare to hit the shot, practice your movement out of the court and get yourself in position to play the ball. Do this a few times until you’re comfortable with the movement and the body position required to get out of the court quickly. Do this as many times as is required so that you begin to get a good feel for it and would be comfortable executing the same movement during a game.
Practice Returning The Smash From Poor Positions
When your opponent is about to play the smash, you won’t always be able to get yourself in great positions to return the ball like the ones that I discussed earlier in this post. Sometimes you’ll have to attempt a return from the back of the court – which is incredibly difficult to do!
As we discussed earlier, the hardest time to return the smash is before it has hit the back wall, as this is the time when the ball is travelling at its fastest. So, if you do find yourself close to the back wall on your side of the court and the opponent is preparing to play the smash, you’ll need to have some experience of defending from there!
During your practice sessions, I’d recommend setting a bit of time aside and asking a partner to smash the ball while you stand at the back of the court and attempt to return the ball from there. This will help you to get accustomed to the type of racket control required to return the ball accurately when the ball is being hit towards you at such high speeds. Obviously, this is a position we don’t want to find ourselves in that often when defending the smash, and some smashes will be unstoppable, but practicing it can help us deal with bad positioning when it happens during a game.
Work Out The Tendencies Of Your Opponents
Every opponent you come across will possess a different playing style, and the quicker you can work out what these are, the better prepared to combat them you will be. If you can work out things like when your opponent likes to play the smash, and where they like to hit it, then there is a greater chance you’ll be able to defend against it. A good padel player is always watching their opponent and learning their tendencies, and as you get more experienced in the game you will become better at doing this.
If you want some ideas of the types of things you should be looking for, think about the following:
- What hand do your opponents use? – if both your opponents are right handed you can stop them playing the smash as much by hitting to the left side of their court
- Where do they like to hit the smash? – if they constantly hit down the middle, you can anticipate this and position yourself early. The same goes for the sides of the court.
- When do they play the smash? – If there is a certain shot you play that causes them to hit the smash, you can anticipate this also
- Do they play the shot well? – Some players are just awful at playing the smash. If you come up against players like these, it may be a good tactic to force them to play it as it will lead to mistakes.
If you play against the same players regularly it’s very easy to get to know their play styles and know when they like to hit the smash. However, if you come up against new players during tournaments, you’ll have to work out their tendencies on the fly. This is a lot more difficult to do but after playing a set against them you should begin to develop a decent understanding of their game.
Practice Your Winners Near The Net
Earlier in this post we discussed how it is a good strategy to position yourself close to the net when a smash is played so that you can strike the ball as it comes back towards you. If you get yourself in this position and the ball is low enough for you to reach, you will have provided yourself with an excellent opportunity to hit a point winning shot. But – like with any other padel skill – you’ll need to make sure you’ve practiced your ability to hit these winning shots from these positions.
If you want to work on this, you’ll probably need to ask a partner to help you once again. Get them to hit a smash shot whilst you position yourself close to the net. As the ball hits the back fence and loops back towards you, run towards the ball, leap up in the air and strike it before it passes over the net. I’d recommend doing this several times until you start to get a feel for the different movements that are required. Plus, by doing it a few times it allows you to work on hitting balls that have been smashed by your partner at different angles, so make sure you ask them to change up the angle of their smashes as you go through this type of practice.
When playing the ball from this position you’ll quickly find that the most effective way to strike it is directly into the ground on the opponent’s side of the court. This allows you to generate a high degree of bounce that can send the ball directly over the side/back wall of the court, making it almost impossible for your opponent to return.
Look Out For Fakes!
If you’re a regular watcher or player of padel then there’s a good chance you’ve seen a few fake smashes before! A fake smash is when a player looks like they are about to jump up and hammer the ball like they would during a normal smash, but instead just taps the ball towards the back of the opponent’s side of the court. The goal of the fake smash is to trick the opposition into running up to the net to defend the smash similar to how I showed earlier in this post. With the opposition in running towards the net, they become particularly vulnerable to slow, fake smash shots played towards the back of the court. To return a ball like this they will need to change direction incredibly quickly in order to get to the ball.
So, fake smashes are something you’ll always have to look out for! Some players are incredibly skilled at disguising their fake smashes, which means there will always be a good chance that you’ll be tricked. However, when playing against players that aren’t as good at hiding their intentions, make sure you’re paying incredibly close attention to their body position/posture. If they are stood beneath the high ball and they have their knees bent with their body looking stiff and contracted, there is an excellent chance that the fast smash shot is about to come. If their body looks more relaxed and less intense, there may be a higher chance of the fake smash occurring.
Like most things in padel, the fake smash becomes easier to spot and deal with the more you experience it, but make sure you keep it in the back of your mind going forwards!
Conclusion
The smash shot is a hugely important part of padel matches, so much so that you will usually see one being played during every point. Therefore, if you can improve your ability to defend against it and win points against it, it will benefit your game. I’m confident these tips will help you do just that! If you can work on them during your practice sessions you’ll be much more comfortable using them during matches, and this should always be your end goal.
Feel free to have a browse of the rest of the site if you want more padel hints and tips!