Sandy Farquharson, a paddle coach trained in Madrid, explains why the lob is central to the sport. Professional paddle players hit 12-15 lobs per point, far more than tennis players might hit in an entire match. In paddle, the lob is an offensive weapon, not a defensive last resort.
Chapters
And I have a question for you. You go a lot to the academies in Madrid, and also you see a lot of our training when we train national level players. What percentage of drills and conditions do we use that have some involvement of the lob? Pretty much every— yeah, every 95%, you would say. Like, sometimes you might use a chiquita or you might use something, but the majority is lobs. Yeah, like, you either make that your condition, you make that early in the point, you— like, it's such an important part of the game, and I don't think I don't think players realize how much the pros lob. Like, if you look— and I know it from, from the commentating because I see it every day— and you, you basically watch the match and they're hitting like 12 to 15 lobs per point, you know. And, and that's something that, particularly from a tennis background, like, tennis players come in and they— you might hit— you wouldn't even hit 10 lobs in a match, right? Like, so, so you come with this mindset of, I'm going to hit passing shots, I'm going to hit fast through my opponents, whereas paddle players, it's like lob, lob, lob, lob. And you— how often do you hear at the club when you say, oh, that person's a lobber, you know, as if it's an insult to, to their paddle, when really I think, oh, they've got the right idea.
