The lob: padel's most important shot (and why beginners ignore it)
No shot wins more amateur padel points than a good lob. How to hit it, when to use it, the three lobs every player needs — and how to deal with one coming back at you.
By Padel Roundup ·
Watch a beginners’ court and an advanced court side by side and you’ll notice the difference immediately — and it isn’t the smashing. It’s the sky. On the advanced court, the ball spends half the match above head height, floated up in long, deliberate arcs. On the beginners’ court, everyone hits flat and hard and wonders why they keep losing to the pair of sixty-year-olds next door who lob every third ball.
Those sixty-year-olds know the game’s worst-kept secret: the lob is padel’s most important shot. Here’s why, and how to build one.
Why the lob rules the game
Padel is a territorial sport. The pair at the net wins most points; the pair at the back mostly survives. Every point is, underneath everything else, a fight over who gets to stand in the front half of the court.
Now look at your options from the back. A drive at the net players gets volleyed. A dink at their feet needs perfect touch. But a lob — high, deep, over their heads — does something no other shot can: it forces them off the net. They must retreat, turn, and deal with a dropping ball near their own glass while you and your partner stroll forward into the space they’ve abandoned. One shot, and the entire geometry of the point has flipped. You haven’t won the point yet, but you’ve won the ground the point will be decided on.
That’s why coaches say the lob is padel’s real serve: it’s the shot that starts your attack.
How to hit it
The good news: the lob asks for almost nothing physically. No racket speed, no shoulder strain, no timing miracle. It asks for calm.
Set your base. Most bad lobs come from bad feet — players lunging or falling backwards as they hit. Get behind the ball, knees soft, weight settled.
Open the face, push through. Get the racket under the ball with an open face and push up and through it — a long, smooth contact, finishing high, as if you’re placing the ball on a shelf above the net players. It’s a stroke, not a flick. Flicked lobs die short; stroked lobs sail deep.
Height first, depth second. A high lob buys time even when it lands a bit short; a flat, driven lob that’s slightly short is the worst ball in padel — it’s called “feeding the smash”. When in doubt, add a metre of height. Nobody ever lost a point because their lob was too high.
Aim cross-court, at the weaker shoulder. Cross-court gives you the longest diagonal — more landing room, more margin. And most pairs have one player whose overhead is meaningfully worse; club wisdom says lob the backhand shoulder of the left-court player until they prove they can punish you. They usually can’t.
The three lobs every player needs
The defensive lob — hit under pressure, often off the back glass, its only job is height and time. You’re not attacking; you’re resetting the point and letting your pair breathe. This is the one to learn first, and playing it off the glass is the skill that unlocks it.
The positional lob — the workhorse. Hit from comfort, mid-rally, when the net pair has crept a step too close. Its job is territory: push them back, move up together. Good players hit a dozen of these a set without thinking.
The winning lob — the rarest and most satisfying: a lob so precise, usually over the left player’s backhand into the deep corner, that no smash comes back at all and the ball dies in glass and mesh. Don’t hunt this one; it arrives on its own once the other two are grooved.
Dealing with the lob when it’s aimed at you
Half of lobbing well is knowing what a good lob does to you — so close the loop:
Call it early. “Mine” or “yours” the moment it leaves the opponent’s racket. Most lob-induced disasters are two partners silently deciding the other one has it.
Turn, don’t backpedal. Running backwards while facing the net is how points and ankles are lost. Turn side-on and move back like a fielder tracking a catch.
Know your two outs. If you can reach it comfortably, take it in the air as a bandeja — the controlled overhead whose whole purpose is keeping your net position (it’s the shot the pros hit constantly, and it exists because of the lob). If you can’t, let it bounce, play it off the back glass, and — naturally — send back a lob of your own. At club level, whole points are two pairs exchanging lobs, waiting for the first short one. Be the pair that doesn’t blink.
A drill and a mindset
The drill is almost embarrassingly simple: with a partner, play cross-court points where every ball you hit from behind the service line must be a lob. Twenty minutes of this and your arm learns the depth calibration nothing else teaches — and you’ll discover how hard it is to lose a rally you refuse to hit flat.
The mindset takes longer, because the lob offends the ego. It feels passive, cautious, even cowardly — right up until you count who wins. Padel keeps a brutal ledger: the flashy shots beginners love are the ones that lose them matches, and the patient ball nobody films is the one that wins territory, points, and eventually whole afternoons. Lob more than feels natural. Then lob a bit more than that.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the lob so important in padel?
Because padel is a game of territory. The pair at the net wins most points, and a deep lob is the only shot that forces the net pair back and lets your team take their place — no power required.
How do you hit a good lob in padel?
From a stable base, get under the ball with an open racket face and push up and through it, finishing high. Aim for height first and depth second — a high lob that lands mid-court is recoverable; a flat one is a smash waiting to happen.
Where should you aim a padel lob?
Deep and usually cross-court, over the head of the opponent with the weaker overhead — most often the player on the left side's backhand shoulder. Cross-court gives you more court to land in and more margin over the net player.
How do you defend against a lob in padel?
Communicate early ("mine" or "yours"), turn side-on, and either take it as a bandeja to hold the net or let it bounce and play off the back glass. The worst response is backpedalling flat-footed and improvising.