Like most racket or bat-based sports, padel has a wide range of shots that players can use during the course of a match. Some shots are used hundreds of times in a match, whereas others are used a lot more rarely. If you have aspirations of being an elite padel player, you’ll need to have a good knowledge of all the different types of shots and be comfortable playing them. One of the shots you’ll definitely need to get to grips with is the lob shot, and that’s the one I’ll be discussing in this post today!
The lob is one of the most commonly used shots in padel, yet a lot of newcomers to the sport have no idea what it is, or why or when they should use it. In this post, I’ll give you the full breakdown of all of those things, and I’ll also answer a few more lob-related questions too! Let’s get started…
So, what is ‘the lob’ shot in padel?
The lob is a shot that goes over the opponent’s head and lands near the back of the court. When hitting it, you should aim to get the ball high enough so your opponent can’t jump and reach the ball as it passes them. The lob is mainly used when a team is on the back foot and trying to re-establish control of a point.
When the lob is played perfectly it will cause the opposition players to retreat away to the back of their side of the court, away from the net. This effectively takes the opposition players out of a dominant position and forces them into a more neutral/defensive one. It will also give the duo who played the lob some time to move into more favourable positions on the court while the ball is still up in the air.
Ideally, the lob should be hit so that it lands in the zone highlighted in red/white in the diagram below. Not only will this force your opponents backwards, but it will also force them into a dilemma regarding whether they should hit the ball before it touches the back wall, or after. This type of indecision can lead to your opponent rushing their shot, or waiting too long to play it, and making an unforced error as a result. Additionally, because the lob causes the ball to travel in an arc high above the court, it means that when it hits the back wall, it won’t bounce back into the court very far. This doesn’t give your opponent much room to get behind the ball in order to hit it back towards you, which makes their return shot a little more awkward!
When Is The Lob Used In Padel?
There are a couple of particular situations when playing the lob is a great option! Here they are:
- When the opposition players have taken control of the point – It’s inevitable that at some point during a padel match your opponents will begin to get the better of you. When this happens, they’ll probably push up towards the net and try to dictate the point from there. As I already mentioned earlier in this post, this is a great time to play the lob. A good lob from this position can drive your opponents backwards and give you a much better chance to win the point
- When your opponents have positioned themselves poorly – If your opponents push up too close to the net, lobbing the ball back over the top of them is a great attacking tactic too. If you get the correct amount of weight and height on the shot, it can be hard for your opponents to turn themselves round quickly enough and return the ball before it bounces twice!
- If you are playing against opponents that don’t deal with the high ball well – If you’re playing against less experienced players, you’ll quickly notice that some of them are not as comfortable striking the ball when it is dropping from a great height. Against these kinds of players, lobbing the ball up in the air a few times no matter what position they’re in can actually be a great strategy and can force them into basic mistakes. You may not want to try this against very experienced players though!
Can The Lob Be Hit Off The Wall?
Yes, you can hit a lob shot by hitting it off the glass wall first – although this is much harder to do than hitting a conventional lob! In padel, you are allowed to hit the ball directly into the glass wall on your own side of the court, as long as it ends up travelling over the net and bouncing on the ground on your opponent’s side of the court afterwards. Click here if you’d like to read a little more about the rules regarding hitting the ball into the walls on a padel court!
So, when might hitting the lob off the wall on your side of the court be a practical option? In my opinion, I would consider trying it if you’re in a position where you’re chasing the ball towards your own back wall. In this moment, there may not be time for you to catch up with the ball, get alongside it and hit it back over the net conventionally before it touches the floor. Instead, it would probably be a good idea to hit the ball straight into the wall, hard enough and high enough so that it could arc right across the court and over the heads of your opponents. As I said, this is an incredibly hard shot to hit right, but at least it would give you an opportunity of staying in the point!
Can You Lob A Serve In Padel?
Technically, you can play the lob shot whilst serving in padel. However, there is probably not much benefit to doing so. The rules of the serve in padel dictate that the ball must bounce in the receiving box which is directly opposite the serving player. You can see this in my diagram below. So, if the serving player was to play the lob straight from the serve, it would still have to land in this box. As we’ve already discussed, the whole point of the lob is that it goes over the heads of our opponents before landing on the ground, but this is practically impossible if we were to land the ball in the receiving box as required during a serve!
So, although the answer to this question is yes, I wouldn’t try playing the lob as a serve if I were you!
Is The Lob An Offensive Or Defensive Shot?
The lob is a shot that is common to sports like padel, badminton and tennis, but it has slightly different uses in all of them. In padel, the lob is primarily a defensive shot. As we’ve discussed, it is mainly used to turn a negative situation into a neutral positive one by disrupting the dominance of your opponents and giving you a chance to get into a better position on the court.
The lob can never really be an offensive (attacking) shot in padel because of the wall that surrounds the court! Whenever the ball is lobbed over your head, there is always a decent chance that you’ll be able to get to it before it hits the ground a second time because the ball will bounce off the wall and come back towards you. Contrast this with a lob in tennis, where there are no walls surrounding the court. If a tennis player plays a perfect lob shot, the ball will bounce behind the opponent and then will continue to travel further away from them, making it much harder to return! This makes the tennis lob a much more dangerous shot than the one used in padel, even if both are extremely useful!
What Shots Will Your Opponent Usually Play To Return The Lob?
There are a variety of shots that your opponent could play to return the ball when you hit the lob. Here are a couple of them:
- The Smash – If you don’t play the lob perfectly and the ball doesn’t quite go over your opponent’s head, they may find themselves in a perfect position to play the smash. The smash is a shot that is played when the ball is high in the air, and your opponent will likely jump up to meet it before playing a powerful overhand shot and smashing the ball into the ground on your side of the court. If they play this correctly it can easily be a shot that wins a point, so do your best to avoid playing poor lobs that gives the opposition the chance to hit the smash.
- The Bajada – The bajada is a slightly more defensive shot that will be played by your opponent when you’ve hit a well-directed lob with the right amount of power. When playing this shot, your opponent will wait for the ball to hit the back glass and rebound, before striking it when it is around head height. This is a powerful shot and will usually be angled downwards towards your feet or into the corners of the court.
Conclusion
I hope this has been an informative intro into what the lob shot is and why it is so useful! If you’ve already started playing or watching padel you’ll have definitely encountered it already, and it’s definitely a shot you should get accustomed to playing if you want to be a decent padel player! Feel free to check out some of my other posts if you’re still interested in learning more about the sport or how to approach certain situations or shots! Enjoy!
