Sandy FarquharsonFounder at The Padel School | Elevating Padel Players' Performance

Can't seem to put volleys away? 🎾

17 Jul 2026 · 2 min

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1:48

In this instructional video, coach Sandy Farquharson explains why many players struggle to control volleys, attributing the issue to the common "frying pan" grip. He contrasts this grip with the Continental (chopping/shaking‑hands) grip, demonstrating how the Continental grip allows precise racket‑face control for slice, flat shots, and directional placement. He emphasizes that proper shoulder rotation is essential for a comfortable and effective volley with the Continental grip. Recognizing the difficulty of transitioning from the frying pan to Continental grip, he promotes a dedicated online course on thepadelschool.com that offers at‑home drills to develop grip familiarity, ball control, and muscle memory, ultimately leading to more reliable volleys on court.

Chapters

If you're a social player and you're wondering why you are not able to put the ball away and your volleys are popping up, it is almost certainly because you are not effectively using the grip as part of your volley. Yeah, this is the frying pan grip, and you're very good at stopping the ball and reaching them like a goalkeeper defending a goal, but you're not able to hit any slice or precision on your volleys. By using the Continental grip, you have complete control of the racket face on your volley, and you find the Continental by sliding your hands down the grip like this, also called the chopping or shaking hands grip. And from this position, you can open the racket face for slice, you can close it to be a bit more flat, you can direct the ball to the right, to the left, and you are completely able to manipulate this racket face. A pro tip is that you can only do this if you turn your shoulders. If I don't turn my shoulders, this is a really uncomfortable volley, and that is why so many players go back to the frying pan grip. Okay, so when we're doing this in continental, we want to turn our shoulders so that we actually can step in and then control the racket face. If you're not used to the continental grip and you had the frying pan grip and you're coming around to continental, It's really difficult to get this right. It's gonna take you time, and that is exactly why we made a course on thepadelschool.com, and you can check the link in the bio, but we made a course for you to practice this at home. So you can actually work on your grip, you can work on your ball control, and it's gonna make all of these shots so much easier because you will do it off court, and then when you step on court, it will be like muscle memory, and you're going to keep that continental grip and have better volleys.