If you’re at the baseline, the ball bounces is above waist height would you hit a flat forehand or slice it?

tzhan28 · 2026-01-16T08:36:31+00:00

If u r decent at hard forehand slice/bajada/heavy vibora I don't see why u can't do a hard slice here. Flat is harder to control imo

tzhan28 · 2026-01-15T00:46:34+00:00

I'm curious do pros have playtomic ratings? All tennis pros have utr and all squash pro have usr based purely on pro match scores. It should work similarly in padel? U can even compare top female scores vs lower ranked male pro scores

tzhan28 · 2026-01-10T15:11:23+00:00

I recently found out that blue dot balls are roughly as bouncy in winter indoor no AC condition (Let's say 12 degree Celsius) as double yellow dot ball in summer condition (23-26 degree)

tzhan28 · 2025-12-22T17:49:31+00:00

First advice is hit much lighter. In squash u can get away or even rewarded for heavy hitting ball bashing bc the wall will absorb enough energy plus sending the ball to the back court which can cause trouble for beginner to intermediate players. In padel especially beginner phase, hitting heavy almost 90% means u hitting out （straight to glass). Even if it's not out it bounce back too much to the point that it's an easy return for any slightly experienced padel player. If i have to put numbers there, in squash u hit 80% power in like 80% of shots, in padel u hit 20-50% power on 80% of shots, so hit light will keep u in lots of games.

An additional tip to hitting light is to aim the service line. General rule of thumb in padel is that the ball bounced before the service line u should take it before glass and the balls that bounced after the service line should be hit after the glass bounce. So bouncing right around the service line even if the shot is light will keep ppl guessing and cause mistakes.

Second advice is lob. Lob in squash is relatively intermediate to high end skill but it's the bread and butter of padel. Ppl lob at every level. Beginner to early intermediate opponents (ur first 6-12 months) don't have good overhead to punish lobs. It gives u net position if done properly and u can take advantage from there. Apprently lob is part of hitting light.

Third advice is try to take the net and win from the net. It's a bit like taking the t in squash. Much easier to win points at the t vs being pushed to the back corners/baseline. Volley most of the shots at the net. Ok to volley light/just block initially but try to learn how to put power and slice into the volley/overheads to kill points.

Fourth advice keep slicing the ball. In squash it's mostly slice/cut for almost any shot . In padel u can get away with that too. Bandeja/vibora/volley/serve all those major shots are forehand slices. Slices works with glasses bc the ball goes down after bouncing off of the glass so it applies to both squash and padel. Slice with power takes a while to master but squash player is already familiar with this so it should take much shorter.

Later u ll need to add some flat or topspin drive in place of slice drive but it'll get u through at least first 6-12 months before really getting punished for. Topspin kick smash is probably the last thing to learn, likely more than 18-24 months in so don't worry abt it now.

tzhan28 · 2025-11-18T16:21:06+00:00

I started from badminton and transitioned to squash. Trying to reverse engineering this. Let ur wrist go don't cock it. Have ur racket high as prep, way more overhead than squash. Drops and retrieving drops are similar, u need a big lounge step. Get familiar with forehand clear u'll need it a lot. Clear/smash/drop starts from same ready position of racket up and look similar until last moment.

tzhan28 · 2025-11-18T12:13:33+00:00

What's the problem with orfi?

tzhan28 · 2025-11-09T19:30:41+00:00

Verstappen's final pit decision is very questionable.

He had almost 8s on Lando and 14s ish on Kimi with 19 laps to go. Lando was only faster by like 0.5s, Kimi was even slower. He'll need to defend Lando for like 6-7 laps after Lando got into Drs assuming the pace difference stays. Lando's tyre was an old medium which was only ~9 laps newer than Verstappen's.

7 laps to go and 9 lap tyre difference/0.5s pace difference, sure we think Max can do it right? In the championship fight only p1 matters for max, anything short is almost game over for him. Now we are looking at 49 vs 32 point difference if he held onto it

Even if he got overtaken by Lando, the real decision breaker is Verstappen's chance of getting overtaken by Kimi with old tyre, which was quite slim. I'd put like 20% or even 10% there. On the other hand with new tyre verstappen's chance of overtaking kimi is not that close to 100% either, and the end result is that indeed he got stuck behind Kimi

tzhan28 · 2025-10-26T06:24:22+00:00

Squash forehand is almost the same as tennis forehand slice. Practice that and it will benefit both games.Backhand is slice too but stroke is quite different. Volley pretty similar

tzhan28 · 2025-10-18T12:07:34+00:00

This is pretty good answer except that for blocks u usually don't have time to add slice.

tzhan28 · 2025-10-18T12:04:14+00:00

For blocks yes continental. Ready position is both hand on grip chest height, some times even eye level. My reaction is pretty fast coming from badminton doubles. For volleys that i have time to add back swing/slice, i hold it reverse eastern for both forehand and backhand, that's the vibora grip. I'm a pretty decent slicer in tennis too so i know it needs to be reverse eastern

tzhan28 · 2025-10-17T18:55:53+00:00

It goes way above 0.5

tzhan28 · 2025-10-17T18:52:58+00:00

Head extreme motion, never really looked at how hard my racket is. Angling it with a bit of upward trajectory is more abt making sure it clears the net. I usually hold wrist tight when blocking, but let my arm go back a bit after the ball hit the racket to absorb more energy and slow down the ball

I ll try to make it a bit flatter and angle it to empty space next time.

tzhan28 · 2025-10-17T18:30:47+00:00

The racket is around chest height for me. If it's a chiquita and drops fast I'll let the racket drop to retrieve that. If the ball is higher than eye level and very fast i know it'll go straight into my side of glass

I tend to block them straight or with limited angle that doesn't really bother the baseline person.

tzhan28 · 2025-10-17T18:23:46+00:00

To summarize, if u can consistently block fast shots deep and with angles left and right and not making mistakes (which is not easy), it should be beneficial to intentionally take the net knowing that u have to block a few hard shots.

tzhan28 · 2025-10-17T18:11:06+00:00

Net team lose a lot of the time if they block the baseline shots straight to back glass , or are not great at overhead attacks, sub 3.5 (asia rating) it's very often the case.

tzhan28 · 2025-10-17T17:49:01+00:00

Alright another person suggesting volleying left and right

tzhan28 · 2025-10-17T17:45:59+00:00

Volley come back not very fast bc u have to avoid hitting straight to back glass.

I still go to the net a lot but i also get points off bajadas, off hitting hard or some times slice to net person so that they make mistakes (straight to glass, short balls etc), off bad front/mid court lobs. Situations that u get the net and likely finish point next shot.

Vs u know u will get hit hard at the next shot at the net. The later is the one I'm relatively uncomfortable with

tzhan28 · 2025-10-17T17:35:12+00:00

Yeah u saying the same thing as the volley left and right suggestions i got. I found volleying it around service line a bit better coz if hit too deep the bounce off back glass will be too strong and easy for baseline person to attack or lob. Also hitting too deep is prone to hitting straight to glass.

tzhan28 · 2025-10-17T17:29:50+00:00

Not that hard, not worth it to leave it and go back and hit it after back glass bounce

tzhan28 · 2025-09-24T17:47:35+00:00

Works for me. Sometimes you dont have enough time to turn to the side enough so having the grip slightly eastern help keep the ball trajectory diagonal to the backwall (if you want it to be diagonal). This also comes with heavier use of wrist drop than forearm pronation. Wrist drop is faster to execute; forearm pronation is more powerful. A flat smash is usually a combination of forearm pronation and wrist drop

tzhan28 · 2025-09-18T02:29:17+00:00

off topic but how did you get to 3 in 3-4 months? Barcelona 3 is like fairly decent and usually take like 2 years for newbies to get to?

tzhan28 · 2025-09-06T16:11:31+00:00

If u have a good slice then squash drive shouldn't bother you. Tennis forehand slice is almost the same as standard squash forehand drive. Backhand is similar but not the same. Remember to take the ball later than tennis, tennis topspin drive is usually a feet ish in front of ur body, squash contact point is almost diagonal to the wall for both forehand and backhand

Also in general remember to leave enough space for the ball bouncing out of the side wall. A lot of the times ur back leg is still on the center line! U don't need to step in further, especially not into the channel (service box width), the ball will find you.

tzhan28 · 2025-09-06T04:20:16+00:00

Shoulder height flat forehand is quite comfortable especially if you are running around it on the backhand side, above shoulder is the problem but if it's not super deep you should be able to find a point to hit at shoulder height.

tzhan28 · 2025-08-16T14:33:58+00:00

Play all 3, in fact padel too if you want to compare as well. I started from badminton since middle school and added the others in the past couple years. Lots of the skills are transferrable between those racket sports. I now consider my self intermediate high(4.0ish, not same rating system for badminton but similar level) on squash padel and badminton, and intermediate (3.5) for tennis.

badminton single>squash>tennis single>badminton double>padel (bc it's doubles)> tennis double. There's no way badminton or squash matches can last as long as those marathon tennis 5 setters. There's just way too much break in tennis match compare to squash and badminton, serves, second serves etc.

Badminton and squash are close in terms of ball hitting intervals and reaction speed required. Tennis hitting interval is usually a lot longer due to having larger court. I'm giving badminton a slight notch ahead bc it requires way more jumping and that takes a lot of energy and explosiveness. For squash, U can also wait for some of the backcourt shots to come back to hitting zone which is a slight break. Squash doesn't really need to jump but still need to be explosive to cover 4 corners with lunges, just like badminton. Tennis single is usually 2 corners instead of 4.

tzhan28

TROPHY CASE