The Lob: Your Most Underrated Weapon in Padel

We want to make sure that we can be effective with that lob team. Today we are going to talk about the lob. In this solo episode, we're going to talk about what makes the lob effective, the technique for the lob, when you would use it, some common errors, and also how you can train it so that it can be effective. And to start off, really, we're talking about a lob is. Is any ball that you come underneath, you hit the ball high into the air. Not necessarily to always take the net, for example, you do have a defensive lob when you're in trouble and you're just wanting to hit that ball up to buy yourself time. But the difference between paddle and, say, tennis is that the majority of paddle lobs are hit as attacking lobs with the purpose of. Of taking the net position. Whereas in tennis, you're always scrambling and you use the lob to get yourself out of trouble or to try and neutralise a point. Here, very often the lob is played as an attack and really to gain control of the net. This is something that either it clears their head or it forces your opponent to hit a difficult overhead. And when you speak to the pros, almost without exception, they will say the lob is the most important shot in the game. And if you watch pro paddle, you will see that majority of the points have several lobs in the point. And if you watch recreational play, particularly those from tennis, but generally speaking, you will see that players, often. This is not a sweeping generalization of everyone, but often players will almost never use the lob, although use it once in a rally. And that is just a sign that it's one of the most important shots. The pros use it all the time, particularly tennis players. I'm saying, right, lob, lob, lob, and not hitting this topspin lob that you think is going to clear them and kick away, you want to integrate it as part of your game that you are either hitting chiquitas or you're using that lob as a weapon, really. And so when we talk about what makes it effective, you've got the height of the lob and you've got the depth of the lob and you've got the location of that lob. Now, in terms of if we start with almost the spin on it, ideally you're hitting it flat for most of the time. And we. We've got a Dineno lob course, who Martin Di no is probably agreed to be the best lobber in the game. I mean, he's so accurate with that lob. And we, we asked him, you know, what's, what are your top tips for the lob? And he was like, just keep the technique simple. His shot is referred to as the spoon because he just comes underneath it and, and just makes it really simple, gets underneath that ball. But he doesn't hit with any spin. And that's something that we said to him, like, should you try to hit size? He said, the moment you start hitting slice, yes, it can be effective, but you lose precision. And so you could hit a very good slice lob. But often the flat lob, you can be the most accurate. You don't want topspin because then it's going to kick away from that back glass and make it easier for your opponents. So the flat lob is the best way to hit that. Now, when we talked about height and depth, depth, obviously the deeper in the court without going out generally makes it more difficult for your opponents to hit an overhead. There are times when you might force them a bit closer and you force them to net and you want to play a faster lob that might bounce a little bit shorter and therefore doesn't have as much rebound. But generally speaking, you want good depth, so that goes past your opponents and good height. Now, when we talk about height, many of you, I'm sure, will play in indoor facilities, and depending on where in the world they they've been built, if you're in Scandinavia most of the time, you've actually got really good ceiling height. I would say most clubs there are probably an average of 10 meters or above in terms of height. In the UK, US, most are around 8 meters. So it's low ceilings. And I mean, I regularly play in the UK at ones where it's 7 to 8 meters. And so that immediately cuts out the high lob. So you have two types of lob. You have a high lob, which is when you come underneath that ball, you get good height. I would say that to have an effective high lob, you really need at least 9 meters height, probably on that lobby. And if you don't know, a rule is that if you hit the ceiling on the lob, that is an immediate fall. So when we talk about height, if you want to hit high lob, probably at least 9 meters. So outdoor is perfect, or high ceilings, you can really be effective with this shot. And then you've got the fast lob, which is played lower over your opponents with the, with the idea that it gives them less time to react. So if you hit a high lob they have time to get underneath that ball because it's higher and therefore more time underneath the peak of the lob. Whereas a fast lob gives them less time. And often you play this over a left shoulder or down the middle of the court so that they have to move very quickly and can only hit a defensive type overhead. This is very effective. If ever you're playing against a big smasher, someone that might be very tall or someone that has a lot of power on their overheads. And if you watch like when players play against Cuello and Tapia, they very rarely try and use the high lobby. Or if they do, they send it as high as they possibly can. And that's where you know, having two big smashes, the high lob is, is often less effective unless you get amazing depth. Yeah. So we're talking there height, depth. Ideally you want to practice both types of lob, a fast lob and a high lob. So fast lob, we talked about high lob being roughly 9 meters fast lob, which is often played when the ceilings are low. This would probably be at about three and a half meters in height. Yeah, you got to think probably four meters to be safe. But depends on the height of your. Your opponents. But that's basically you're weighing up the idea of height versus depth. Yeah. And that's what makes an effective lob. If we talk about the times to use it, most of the time you are hitting this shot, like we said, with the intention of taking the net. But if you're playing defensively, you're. You're doing it to buy time for yourself to get into position. Now if you're doing it on the attack, you're also buying time, but you're buying your time for you and your partner to take the net. And so it's just understanding when you would use that. Now, we talked briefly about indoor outdoor. If you're outdoor and you hit a high lob, it can be so effective even if it's not that deep because you've got the sun, you got a little bit of wind, is very difficult. And this is why when you see players play outdoors, even the pros, they hit up these high lobs. And often the players are just pushing bandekas. And so you want to consider that when you get into your games, particularly outdoors, and this is always my argument whenever someone's talking about, well, nowadays players are not hitting vandekas, they're only hitting veras. I guarantee you watch the pros play outdoors, you will see them all hitting Bandekas because they cannot hit a vibra. Vibra is very risky off a high lob. Outdoors, they're good enough indoor to play the vibra for most shots, but outdoor, they will definitely need the van deja. And therefore it's an attacking shot in itself. Just a high lob. You are basically doing it to take the net position or to reset in the point if you need to. Now, if we look at the. The technique for this shot, very similar to the Chiquita in that you don't need a lot of power, you don't need loads of leg drive. Yes, you want your legs to go up through the ball. You want the contact on the underside of the ball. So not like tennis where you brush up the back and you're going for distance and topspin. Here you want to come more underneath it so you're getting a nice looping trajectory. And you do want to almost hit with the contact and follow the ball up if you can. Now, using your legs up through the ball also helps. Again, short take back. You don't need a big, big swing on this. It's almost about like we, you know, we said with Martin Dinello is, is just keeping it simple and being accurate with that. So flat under the contact, nice underneath the ball. And if you can, as flat as possible without the spin. Now, there's going to be times when you might play it on the half volley or you might be in a position where you need to hit a little bit of spin on it as a variation, but for the most part you are coming underneath that and trying to hit that flat if you can. One thing that we want to consider, and we talked about this, it's almost on the, the tactical side of when players come to paddle. They almost never use the lob. They only use it when they're in real trouble. And if you use the lob when you're in real trouble, usually you end up hitting it short and you end up being in even more trouble on the next point. One exercise that we do with players, and there's a few different exercises, but I'm always trying to get players to use it as the attack. Like I see, even up to a very good level, players are good from the back. They use the Chiquita, they hit the ball well through gaps and they get an easy ball. And instead of thinking, oh, this is the perfect time for lob, it's an easy ball. I am more likely to be accurate with my lob. They end up trying to play through their opponents. And if there's not a gap that's been created that can be so risky because all they do is just block that ball back and it's 50, 50. Whereas if you hit a lob from a little bit closer up the court. Yes. You need to be aware that now the distance is a bit shorter. So not over here, but on an easy ball, you're more likely to be accurate with the lob. And remember, your objective from the back of the court is not to try and win the point. Your objective from the back is to get to net and then you can start worrying about how you're going to win the point. Yeah. So that's a bit of a mindset shift is that like if you're playing from the back and you're comfortable at the back, you get a short ball, say to yourself, right, I'm going to use the lob. And that's actually in that situation often better than the chiquita even. Because chiquita you've got quite a small area to aim for. If you think that your opponents are at the second post, you have quite a big space behind them. So just a simple flat lob over their head and then come in. And that's almost simplicity is, you know, we're mentioning that word a lot here when we talk about technique and when to use it. But force an easy ball, then use that lob. Yeah. Some common mistakes that we see with the lob is often players hit the ball a bit short and this, this often comes from like practicing. Most of the time people don't practice the lob. The only time they practice it is to give when their opponent says, oh, can I have a few smashes or can I, you know, I want to practice my 3 meters. So you feed them and you feed them shorter and shorter in the warm up. First you feed them bande a bit further back and then they say, right, I want to be aggressive. And so they come a bit closer and you feed your lob even shorter. Then they practice their aggressive smashes. And then you say right game and you've just gone from practicing 15 to 20 short lobs to now going into a game where you don't want to hit a short lob. And so I think that's a big one. Is like practice this as much as you can in training. Now I'm not saying when you're warming up and they say can I have some bandejas? You are trying to hit intentional lobs. I'm talking about almost practicing it in training when you can maybe saying With a partner, hey, can you go at net? And maybe they work on their behada while you work on a deep lob. But it's a really important part of the game, is getting that depth on the lob. And practice definitely helps, and particularly practice if you are in a location that you are not used to. Say you go and play a tournament in the UK at one of these clubs with a low ceiling, you want to go and practice your fast lob in those conditions or say you go and play outdoors. We have some of our players that might end up going to, you know, the premiere in, in Qatar, for example, and it's outdoors and so they need to practice that. Or when we've got Euros, which are coming up this summer, and if it is an outdoor venue, then we will be practicing outdoors mainly for the lob, because we want to make sure that we can be effective with that lob. I think the other common mistakes with the lob come from the usage of when they use it and almost players not using it on easy balls and only using it defensively. And we've got to try and shift that mindset that it's our most attacking weapon that we've got as our lob because it can get us to net very easy. So it's almost not using it at the right time. And that is a major common error. And really often here, I think let's watch some of the pros, Martin Di Nano is a good example, plays a fantastic lob, but they all play a good lob because they, they have to, to get to this level. And as the, the matches go on, unfortunately on social media you often only see the highlights. You often see Cuello or Tapia kicking a ball out and then running out and hitting it through the legs, in through the door. You don't often see the 25 shot build up to get to that stage where they both hit 10 lobs each to get to that stage. And so I think it's important to understand if you ever watch pros, look how often they lob and, and look, they just keep it so simple. They're not trying anything difficult with the lob. They're lobbing often over the left shoulder if in doubt because that's quite a difficult shot to be aggressive on. But if you watch at the pro level, lob is being played all of the time. So when it comes to the practice mention, you can do this with a friend. But then also when you get into a game, and I know for the most part players play a lot of social recreational games. Practice this at the beginning of that match. It's so important that you get the range for your lob at the start of a match. If you play the first few games and you don't hit any lobs and, and then suddenly you say to yourself, right, to win this, we now need to hit lobs and you haven't really hit any, then it's very difficult to suddenly get your groove on, right? You've got to start this at the beginning, at the beginning of the match, first couple of games, say, right, me and my partner, let's lengthen these rallies, let's hit lots of lobs, let's see how they are in the air. Let's get our range with the lobs. Because almost without exception, this is obviously depends on the overhead game of a lot of players and lots of other games. But, but generally the pair that lob the best and the most accurately tend to win. And that's, that's not just a beginner level, that's at intermediate level, advanced level, that's at the pro level. I mean, look at, you know, your players. You've got Chingotto and Denino on the right hand side playing at the top of the game. They don't have big overhead weapons. Their weapons are the accuracy of their lob. So make sure when you start your match, the beginning of the match, really hone that shot and get accurate with it. Now, if you're already a member, let us know on our platform powerschool.com how you're getting on with your lobs. And if you're not a member, you can always check it out. We've got a free trial go in there and, and often we get players to send in our videos so that we can have a little look and, and help them with the technique. And the lob is such an important shot. We even have, I mean, courses and courses on the lob and how to combine it with Chiquita if you want to head there. Thanks for listening, get lobbing and good luck in your next.