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

Still slicing everything on your backhand? 🎾

12 Sept 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:19

In this instructional segment, the coach explains the fundamentals of a solid backhand stroke. He emphasizes starting in a ready position with a continental grip, using the left hand to take the racket back while coordinating footwork and body positioning to get into the optimal stance. The coach discusses the importance of judging distance and taking small steps to align the body. He contrasts slicing versus playing flat, noting that over-reliance on slice limits margin for error, while a flat backhand offers better accuracy for soft shots like the chiquita. The contact point should be just in front of the right hip, and the arm should be slightly bent and relaxed rather than rigid, allowing a smoother swing and better ball control.

Chapters

When it comes to the backhand side, it's the same. You're in your ready position. Again, we didn't mention it earlier in the video, but you want to be in continental grip for all of these shots. So continental grip here, ready position. Your left hand takes the racket back, you follow it with your footwork, bodywork, so that you're all in a good position. And then again, you're judging your distance, little steps to get into a position. And again, the same with the backhand. Now if you're someone that slices everything, maybe you're from tennis and it's easier for you to slice, you do need to learn to to play flat because if you wanted to hit a chiquita, a soft shot to the feet, it's easier to be more accurate with that flat shot. If you play everything with slice, there's low margin for error because you have to go lower over the net to be more difficult for your opponents. So we're in this position here and you want to go forward and contact just in front of your right hip. Now if you are someone that's learning to play flat on this ball, you can even take the arm slightly in front of the body like this for that contact. You don't need to, to keep it locked into your body during the swing phase, so you would loosen the arm up. You want a slight bend, you don't want it like rigidly straight, slight bend so that you can contact that ball in front.