Key Takeaways
- Coaches Sandy and Tom warn that amateur bandejas bounce high off the glass because players treat the stroke like a smash instead of a high forehand push volley.
- Sandy emphasized that “90% of the time it’s footwork” causing errors, noting players backpedal, react late, or drop their elbows too low before contact.
- Slowing the stroke down and targeting the side glass first helps take pace off the ball and gives players sufficient time to recover the net.
Why recreational overheads bounce too high off the glass
One of the most persistent frustrations for amateur and club padel players is delivering an overhead that sits up off the back wall for opponents to punish. Following a commentary trip with Red Bull TV to an outdoor Premier Padel tournament in Paris, The Padel School coaches Sandy and Tom broke down why the shot frequently fails at recreational level and how modern professionals utilize it under difficult conditions.
Sandy observed that even elite competitors on the professional circuit rely heavily on the defensive overhead rather than attempting to blast every ball. Addressing common coaching trends that prioritize aggressive spin shots, Sandy noted: “This is something that coaches often say, ‘Oh, well, the modern game now it’s all viboras and really you should be teaching just vibora. You don’t need the bandeja.’ Well, I tell you, you watch that week and everyone is hitting bandejas, even those top players.”
When deep lobs go high into sunny outdoor conditions, attempting an aggressive finish can prove risky. Tom highlighted how rare mistakes from top players like Agustin Tapia demonstrated that even the world’s best encounter issues when dealing with blinding light and deep defensive balls, reinforcing the necessity of having a reliable, neutral overhead.
Footwork breakdowns and treating the stroke like a volley
When assessing why amateur players deliver balls that kick up aggressively off the back wall, Sandy revealed that the primary flaw almost always starts prior to contact. “Whenever someone says to us on the platform, ‘Oh, I’m really struggling with my bandeja.’ 90% of the time it’s footwork because they are not getting into a good position for the ball,” Sandy said.
Rather than adopting the deep drop and explosive vertical extension seen in a tennis smash, padel players must position their bodies to the side and maintain the contact point around forehead height. Sandy stressed that shifting one’s mindset transforms the mechanics immediately: “And I think for me the biggest fix with a bouncy bandeja is to say to a player the bandeja is not a smash. Okay, it is a high forehand volley. Stop treating it like a smash because as soon as you say hit the bandeja they go into the trophy position, the elbow is down and then they hit up to the ball.”
Tom added that amateur players frequently suffer from a gap between sensation and reality, noting: “We do a lot of video analysis with players and one of the biggest things when you do a video with a player is ‘feel versus real’ and so players feel like the arm is up and then you look on the video and you can see that the elbow is low.”
Pacing, contact mechanics and targeting the glass
The mechanics of the swing should remain compact and controlled rather than whipped with extreme wrist speed. Sandy detailed the exact path required to produce slice and keep the ball from climbing off the wall: “So swing path is coming down to the ball. So you’re opening that racket face coming down to the ball and using a blocking action like a volleying punching action down to that contact because you are not trying to hit this as hard generally speaking.”
Amateur players also frequently hit the ball with excessive velocity. During live coaching clinics, Tom noticed that attendees are routinely stunned by the controlled speed demonstrated by the coaching team. “Players are always surprised how slowly we hit this shot,” Tom stated, adding that “it is a very slow shot. It’s a shot to recover the net but actually really the slower you can hit it, the more time you have.”
Tactical selection also dictates whether an opponent can counter-attack. Sandy advised targeting multiple walls to bleed momentum from the ball: “If you can get glass involved, but get two glasses involved, then it’s bound to be less bouncy. It takes the speed off the ball, giving you more time to get in.” Sandy recommended aiming for the side glass first on the opponent’s side so that the ball rebounds into the back glass and dies deeper in the court, preventing an aggressive transition forward.
Building consistency away from match play
Fixing technical faults rarely occurs during social games, where competitive pressure and irregular shot opportunities disrupt learning. Sandy explained that relying on recreational matches to solve mechanical problems is usually futile: “There’s absolutely no way you can improve that in another social game because a you’re keeping score and therefore there’s something more important than working on your technique and b you don’t get any regularity and repetition of the shot.”
Instead, the coaches advocate off-court shadowing, footwork drills, and static ball exercises at home to ingrain the movement. Tom pointed out that using stationary setups allows players to establish correct habits without game distractions: “The still ball practice, hence the name, is that you have a still ball where you work on your contact point and the ball isn’t moving. And so what this does is it trains your body to understand where the right contact point is.” Through consistent repetitions in a controlled environment, players can systematically eliminate high bounces and reliably recover the net.
