Watch any club-level padel match for ten minutes and you will see the same pattern: one player quietly steers every ball towards the other player’s left shoulder. It is not a coincidence. The backhand is the side almost everyone neglects, and good opponents find it within three points.
The forehand feels instinctive. The padel backhand asks your body to do something it was never wired to do, which is why so many players go years with an obvious weak side. This guide covers the grip, the preparation, the one-handed versus two-handed question, the five mistakes that cost you points, and four drills that turn the shot around in a month.
- Why your backhand decides more points than you think
- The mechanics of a clean padel backhand
- One hand or two: which backhand suits you
- Five mistakes that keep your backhand weak
- Four drills that fix it within a month
- Padel backhand FAQ
Why your backhand decides more points than you think
In padel the ball comes back. That single difference from tennis is what makes a weak backhand so expensive: you do not get hit once on that side, you get hit every rally, from every angle, all match long. A forehand that wins the occasional winner will never compensate for a backhand that leaks a free ball each time.
The side opponents will find on purpose
Experienced pairs read weak sides fast. If your backhand floats, they will lob to it, they will serve wide to it, and they will make you play it off the glass where the timing is hardest. You end up defending a side you never trained, which drags the whole pair backwards. The same logic runs through most of the common padel beginner mistakes: opponents attack the thing you avoid.
The flip side is that the backhand is the cheapest improvement available to most club players. It is under-trained, so the gap between where you are and where a few sessions could take you is wide. Nobody gets a comparable return from another five kilometres per hour on a smash.
The mechanics of a clean padel backhand
A padel backhand is not a shortened tennis backhand. The racket is shorter, it has no strings to flex, and the court is small enough that a long swing simply arrives late. What you want is compact, early and stable.
The grip that lets you switch without thinking
Use a continental grip, with the index knuckle sitting on the top bevel of the handle. Its whole value is that it needs no adjustment: the same hand position covers forehand, backhand, volley and overhead, which matters enormously in fast net exchanges where you have no time to rotate the handle. If you play with two hands, the guiding hand (the left for a right-hander) can sit in a semi-western grip for a little extra lift.
Avoid a heavily closed grip on the backhand side. It builds tension in the wrist and shrinks the window where you can still hit cleanly. A quick test: hit twenty balls against a wall. If the wrist complains, the grip is too closed.
Preparation: shoulders first, feet second
The single most common fault is waiting for the ball before preparing. Turn your shoulders the moment you read the direction, not when the ball crosses the net. At padel speeds, the shoulder turn has to be a reflex or it never happens at all.
Take the racket back to shoulder height, elbow in front of the body, wrist slightly flexed. The foot on the backhand side steps slightly forward so the weight has somewhere to go. And do not back away from the ball. Stepping back feels safe and puts you off balance instantly.
Contact point and the short finish
Meet the ball slightly in front of the body, around hip height for a low backhand and chest height for a high one. Firmness beats force here. The wrist stays locked through contact, because a wrist that breaks at the last moment is exactly what sends the ball two metres wide with no obvious cause.
Keep the follow-through short and pointed at the target. Long circular finishes belong to tennis. In padel a compact finish gives you control and, just as importantly, leaves you ready for the next ball, which in this sport is usually already on its way. The same principle governs the volley at the net.
One hand or two: which backhand suits you
Unlike tennis, the one-handed backhand dominates at good padel levels. That is not fashion, it is geometry. But both versions have a real case.
The one-handed backhand: reach and variety
One hand gives you more reach, more feel, and far more shot variety: slice, topspin and flat all become available. It handles very low balls and very high balls without forcing you to reposition your whole body, and it is the only realistic option when you are stretching towards the glass.
The cost is technical. A poorly executed one-hander is weaker and less accurate than a decent two-hander, because nothing is holding the wrist steady but the wrist itself. Drill it before you trust it in a match.
The two-handed backhand: stability and pace
Two hands are steadier and more powerful. The second hand guides the racket face and takes the guesswork out of the contact, which is why players coming from tennis usually keep it. It works particularly well for baseline exchanges and long down-the-line passes.
Its weakness is reach. Any ball far from the body, anything requiring extension, anything coming off the back glass at an awkward angle, and the second hand becomes a handbrake. Most players end up hitting two-handed at the baseline and one-handed everywhere else, which is a perfectly sound compromise as long as it is a choice rather than an accident.
Five mistakes that keep your backhand weak
| Mistake | What it costs you | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Late preparation | Rushed contact, no control at all | Turn the shoulders as the ball leaves their racket |
| Straight, locked arm | Lost power and strain on the elbow | Keep a slight bend in the elbow at contact |
| Wrist breaking at impact | Balls sprayed in every direction | Lock the wrist through the hitting zone |
| Backing away from the ball | Hitting off balance, net position lost | Step in or hold ground, never retreat |
| Forgetting to recover | An open court for the next shot | Return towards the centre after every hit |
The most damaging of the five is backing away from the ball. It is a defensive reflex, it feels like buying time, and it does the opposite: you hit while moving backwards, the ball floats, and your opponents step in. Fixing it is as much a mental habit as a technical one, and it pays off on every shot you own, not just the backhand.
These are also the situations where the backhand actually shows up in a match, and knowing which one you are in changes what you should attempt:
- Defensive backhand off the glass: play a short slice that climbs back along the glass. Do not swing hard. The goal is to reset the rally, not to win it from the worst position on court.
- Cross-court backhand as an attack: on a short, central ball, a cross-court backhand into the opposite corridor is a genuine weapon, especially against a pair that covers its outside badly.
- Backhand volley at the net: prepare high and block the shot. Less follow-through than at the baseline, more punch, and the ball stays low.
- Backhand under a lob: if you cannot get around it, a backhand bandeja is far better than a scrambled overhead. Train it deliberately instead of running around every lob.
Four drills that fix it within a month
These four drills work in order, from simplest to hardest. Two sessions a week is enough to feel a difference, and none of them requires a coach.
- Wall drill, solo: stand two to three metres from a wall and hit backhands continuously. Count clean contacts and chase twenty in a row. This builds the movement without match pressure, which is exactly what a neglected side needs first.
- Cross-court rally, in pairs: from the baseline, rally backhand to backhand only. Start slowly, then raise the pace. The target is consistency and depth, not winners.
- Backhand off the glass: your partner feeds balls into the glass on your backhand side and you replay them under control. This is the shot you will actually face most often, and almost nobody trains it.
- Backhand-only points: play out points where both players may use the backhand only. It feels absurd for about four minutes, then it becomes the fastest way to find out what your technique does under real pressure.
Watching helps too. Slow-motion footage on the Premier Padel YouTube channel shows how compact professional backhands really are, and how early the shoulder turn happens compared with what most club players do. If you want the competitive context around those matches, the Premier Padel tour site keeps the calendar and results.
If you are still building the basics around the shot, our guide to choosing a padel racket is worth a read: a frame that is too head-heavy makes a developing backhand noticeably harder to time.
Padel backhand FAQ
Should a beginner learn the one-handed or the two-handed backhand?
Start with two hands if you have never played a racket sport, because the second hand stabilises the face and you will make contact more often, which keeps the learning enjoyable. Move towards one hand as soon as reach starts limiting you, which usually happens within a few months.
Why does my backhand keep going long?
Almost always a late contact point combined with an open racket face. If the ball is beside you or behind you rather than in front, the face naturally opens and the ball sails. Fix the preparation first and the depth usually corrects itself without touching anything else.
Is the backhand slice useful in padel?
Very. A low slice that climbs back along the glass is one of the hardest balls to attack, and it costs almost no energy. It is the default defensive backhand at every level above beginner, and it pairs naturally with a well-judged lob.
How long before a weak backhand becomes reliable?
With two focused sessions a week, most players see a real difference in four to six weeks. The grip and the shoulder turn change within days. What takes longer is trusting the shot in a match instead of running around it, and governing bodies such as the LTA padel programme or the International Padel Federation list coached sessions that speed that part up.
Your backhand is not a talent problem, it is a training problem, and that is good news. Sort out the grip, turn the shoulders early, keep the finish short, and drill the four exercises above. Do that and the side opponents have been targeting all season quietly becomes the side they stop aiming at. Get on court and start today!