Where to Stand After You Lob in Padel: Get Into the Net Zone
Plenty of players know they should go forward after a good lob. Fewer have any idea where they are actually going.
So they set off, stop somewhere around the middle, and stand there. The lob did its job and the position never got taken. This is about the destination rather than the timing: which part of the court you are moving into, and how far up it really is.
The lob buys a specific piece of court
A lob that pushes the other pair back opens the area in front of you, roughly from the service line up towards the net. That band is the zone.
It is not a vague instruction to go forward. There is a defined area that is briefly undefended, and the whole value of the lob is the chance to stand in it.
Stopping short leaves you in the worst place
Pull up somewhere around the middle of the court and you are in no man's land. Too deep to volley anything as an attack, too far forward to use the back glass.
From there the next ball arrives at your feet and you are hitting up. You did the hard work of the lob and then parked in the one place the court punishes.
Go all the way in
Keep moving until you are properly at the net, close enough to take balls out of the air and above the tape rather than reaching down for them.
Most players who think they are at the net are a metre or two short of it. That gap is the difference between volleying down and scooping up.
Occupy it, do not visit it
Once you are there, stay. Drifting back after one volley hands the zone straight back and starts the whole sequence again.
You lobbed to earn this piece of court. Standing in it is the part that turns the shot into a point.
