Watch a beginner approach the net in padel. They arrive looking faintly alarmed, racket arm cocked back like they’re about to throw a dart, and then the ball comes and they either shank it into the glass or swipe at fresh air. The alarmed expression deepens.
The problem isn’t their reflexes. It’s that they’re treating the volley like a smaller version of a groundstroke – and it isn’t. The volley is a different shot entirely, with different mechanics, a different purpose, and a different headspace. Once you understand what it’s trying to do, it gets a lot less terrifying.
Your grip is probably wrong
Most beginners use a full western grip (the “frying pan” hold) because it feels natural off the baseline. For the volley, this is a problem. It makes the racket face angle awkward and forces you to compensate with wrist movement. More wrist movement means more variables. More variables means more mistakes.
For volleying, shift to something closer to a continental grip – rotate the racket slightly in your hand so that if you were holding it edge-on to the ground, you’d be gripping it like a hammer. It feels unfamiliar at first. It isn’t. It’s the grip that lets the racket face open naturally to push the ball where you want it, without gymnastics. (A fresh overgrip helps enormously with the feel – if yours is worn down, the overgrip guide explains which type to choose.)
If you play doubles (which is all of padel, technically), you and your partner will be switching between forehand and backhand volleys in rapid succession. The continental grip handles both sides without a grip change. That alone makes it worth learning.
Your stance and ready position
Net position in padel is closer than most people expect. You want to be roughly two to two-and-a-half metres from the net – close enough that the ball can’t dip below the tape before it reaches you, far enough that you’re not jammed up against it.
Feet shoulder-width apart, slight bend in the knees, weight forward on the balls of your feet. Not the heels. The heels anchor you when you need to be moving. Your racket should be up in front of you, roughly at chest height, with the face slightly open. This is the “ready position” – it’s where you reset between every shot, not just when you’re expecting a ball.
The most common mistake is letting the racket drop. It drops to your hip, the ball comes at your shoulder, and suddenly you’re lifting from below instead of redirecting from in front. Keep it up. It’s more tiring when you’re not used to it. It gets easier.
Take the ball early, in front of you
This is the single biggest shift between groundstroke thinking and volley thinking: you are not waiting for the ball to come to you. You are meeting it.
Contact point for the volley is out in front of your body – further forward than feels natural. If the ball is level with or behind your shoulder, you’ve let it travel too far and you’ve given up control. Early contact means more time after the shot. It means your opponent has less time to react. It means the geometry works in your favour.
“Punching” is the word coaches use, and it’s a reasonable one – a short, forward motion from the shoulder, not a swing from the elbow. The swing is what gets you into trouble. The bigger the backswing, the more that can go wrong, and at net you don’t have time to fix anything.
Block volley versus put-away volley
Not all volleys are the same shot, and confusing them is where a lot of points get dropped.
The block volley is what you use when the ball is coming at you fast and low. There’s no time for anything clever. Your job is to redirect it – angle it off to the side, drop it short, change its direction. Minimal swing, firm wrist, absorb the pace. Think of it as a deflection, not a hit. Block volleys won’t win you points outright, but they keep you in the rally and often force errors.
The put-away volley is for when you’ve been given something high and slow. The ball is above the tape, your opponents are back or out of position, and you have time to do something with it. Now you can add a little punch, direct it down at their feet, hit behind the player who’s moving. This is where you finish points. The mistake is trying to put away shots that deserve a block – swinging hard at a ball that’s coming fast and low, and watching it sail long.
The decision is fast, but it’s learnable. High and slow: attack. Low and fast: redirect.
Why a compact volley beats a powerful one
The glass walls return pace to your opponents, so placement and angle win more points at the net than power. A short punch is also faster to execute.
Padel is played in a box. The walls give opponents more time than they’d have on a tennis court, which means pace alone rarely finishes points. What finishes points at net is placement and angle – making your opponent move, taking away their comfortable position, creating the geometry where they have to lob or they’re beaten.
A compact volley is more accurate than a full swing. It’s also faster to execute, which matters at net where you often have half a second or less. The players who look effortless at the net aren’t hitting the ball hard – they’re hitting it early and precisely, and then moving on.
Power is satisfying. It’s also mostly wasted in padel. The glass just sends it back.
A drill for two players, no coach needed
This one is straightforward and worth doing for ten minutes at the start of a session.
Stand at the net, your partner stands at the opposite net. Feed each other volleys from roughly four metres away – gentle pace, varying height and direction slightly. The person receiving focuses on: keeping the racket up, making contact in front, using a short punch. No winners. No pace. Just clean contact.
After five minutes, the feeder takes one step back and adds a little more pace. The receiver adjusts. After another five, add angle – feed wide to the forehand and backhand alternately. The receiver has to reset quickly between each shot.
What you’re building is the habit of early contact and the ready position. Both of these are things your body learns through repetition, not explanation. Do it often enough and it starts happening without thinking. The movement between shots – the split step, the recovery, the push-off – is covered in the padel footwork guide, which is worth reading alongside volley practice.
The net is where matches are decided
In padel, the net pair almost always wins the rally against the baseline pair. Once you understand the volley, the next piece of the puzzle is knowing where to stand – doubles positioning covers how you and your partner should be organised at the net and from the back. The net pair wins on geometry: shorter angles, less time for the opponent to react, more ways to finish the point.
The volley is your tool for taking that position and doing something with it. It doesn’t need to be a weapon. It needs to be reliable – compact, early, placed – and the rest follows. Get comfortable at the net and the game starts to make a different kind of sense. When you’re ready to go further – the backhand volley, the fizz, shot selection under pressure – the full padel volley guide covers all of it.