If you take one shot away from this club and practise it until it is boring, make it the bandeja. It is the shot that lets you hold the net against a good lob, and holding the net is how padel points are won.
What it actually is
A bandeja is a defensive-offensive overhead played with a slice, at roughly shoulder height, aimed to land deep and die low. It is not a smash. You are not trying to win the point — you are trying to keep the net and make the lob cost your opponent something.
The five drills
- Shadow slice (3 min): no ball. Side-on stance, racket up, brush from high-outside to low-inside. Feel the slice.
- Feed and freeze (5 min): partner lobs, you hit one bandeja and hold your finish position for two seconds.
- Target square (5 min): place a towel in the deep corner. Ten balls, count how many land on it.
- Move-and-hit (4 min): start at the net, retreat two steps, hit, recover to the net. Every rep ends with you back on the line.
- Live rally (3 min): your partner may only lob; you may only bandeja. Twenty balls without an error.
The three errors we see every week
Turning it into a smash. Letting the ball drop below shoulder height. Hitting it flat, so it sits up on the bounce and invites a counter. Fix those three and your net game changes inside a month.
