Game 45: 23rd April

4-6

3-3


Rating: warming up


Venue: usual venue (centre court)


Report

Padel can be great fun and a fantastic ice breaker. One opponent dropped out but he managed to dig up a replacement, an early 20s Uni student that had been playing tennis from the time he was 6. 

oh boy....

The guy was a very nice chap who it was a pleasure to meet and who really enjoyed the game of Padel, Luckily it really is different enough from Tennis to give me and my partner a chance. To me the wall is my friend; to tennis players a lot of the time they consider it the enemy.

In saying that, we took a few games to warm up and were very quickly down 0-3 in the first set but we broke back and managed to make it respectable. My partner had a few unforced errors initially but these improved as the match progressed. Always disapointed not to break for 5-5 but it wasn't to be, too many errors.

A constant refrain from me is that I am not aggressive enough but I really did pretty well, especially in regards to positioning, no hanging about at the back, I was net default and it really made the game much easier. Second set felt even higher quality and you can see we didn't get 2 sets in within the hour. I think it's time to switch from normal Duece to Golden Point.

The temps and the balls made a difference as well, must have been 13c or so + fresh(ish) Adidas RX Speed balls meant the ball sat up on bounces and so was easier to defend. 

tbh, it's the best I've played for a while in feeling in control of the tempo of the game, not making many mistakes and playing with aggressive patience.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Game 21: 19th February

  No score Rating: Family Padel! Me and my kids Venue: The Local - 60mins on the Sandy Court Report from my 7 year old. Good shots Like I hit my dad right in the goolies. It was really funny.  He was like running off crazy and he did some great shots as well. But I also smashed it up against the wall and it went flying out of the court so many times About the game I think it was a tie cuz we each had 4040 and our time was up when we finished so we so then we got the set so we actually won against my sisters.  Final thoughts. I hit it to the other court like seven times and they kept throwing it back. My sister just hit a random guy's knee  with the ball. like what? it was so weird I was like bro. What the heck. I literally scored with like a backhand volley which was really good and also a power volley.
Read more

Game 8: January 25th

 Score :  4-6 1-6 4-6 Rating: mismatch Venue: Playtomic Barn - 60 min competitive game Report: Me up against two significantly higher ranked players and playing with a significantly lower ranked partner that I hadn't played with before. I'm rated midway between intermediate and beginner and that's what we had in the match. Tough tough match and the score flatters my side perhaps. There wasn't much in the way of rallies (as seem by the amount of games we got through) and I am not even tired after the game. Randomly, I tried a "willy" after getting surprised with a good return after my serve but it was a massive fail. I did do a successful backhand boast which I struggle with usually . Overall I didn't play bad. It was a 3.6 roentgen performance. But I was just unable to drag my team into contention.  I did play on the left and had no issues with backhand serve return all match. And some of my lobbed serve returns into the corner were excellent. the fact tha...
Read more

Game 1: 4th Jan 2026

Score 6-0 6-0 6-2 Then (6-2 and 6-3) Rating: Great Fun (for me) Venue: Playtomic Barn - 90mins Covered but very very cold (-3c) Report: So I've not played over the Christmas holidays and boy have I missed it.  Setup a match with people around the same rating as me that I hadn't played with before which is always a strangely nervous thing. Luckily they were all sound. The way the teams set up meant I was partnered with a guy who had experience of the tactics and unfortunately our opponents were always being sucked into no man's land. In saying that, I played really well for me. Lobs were on point, very few unforced errors, serve was good without being incredible.  Partner A also played really well, some buttery soft backhand volleys down the line from the right hand side. And communication was great throughout. A++++ would partner again. After 3 pretty quick sets we swapped teams and, although I felt like a dickhead doing it (as I am not good enough to give advice), I pointe...
Read more