What Makes a Good Padel Lob? Lessons from Professional Matches
What four match studies tell us about passing opponents, keeping the rally alive and deciding when to take the net.
ResearchBy PadelFormat Editorial TeamPublished 10 min read
Quick answer
A good padel lob gives your pair time, pushes the opponents back or makes their next overhead awkward. Passing both players is one useful outcome, but it does not measure everything the shot can achieve. Professional match research supports judging the reply and your next position, rather than rushing forward whenever you lift the ball.
TL;DR
- Decide whether you need time to recover or a chance to take the net.
- Watch where and how the opponent can hit the next ball before moving in.
- Professional lob studies measure different things. Keeping a rally alive, passing the net players and taking the net are separate outcomes.
- The research does not establish one best lob direction for every player.
- Practise the lob and the next shot together. A feed into an empty court misses the opponent's response.
On this page
What should a good lob achieve?
Start with the problem in front of you. If your pair is stretched at the back, you may need time to recover. If the opponents have crowded the net and you have a controlled contact, you may have a chance to send them backwards and come in.
The 2024 study Playing High describes these different tactical purposes. Its practical recommendations include recovering position, taking the net and making the opposing overhead uncomfortable. It does not test a training programme or prove that one cue makes club players win more points. 1
Judge your lob by the ball it gives the opponents. Can they attack comfortably in front of their body? Have you made them move back? Can your partner move with you, or are they still trying to recover from the previous shot?
A ball can stay in play while leaving your pair in trouble. It can also be intercepted overhead after buying you useful recovery time. Treat those as different results when you practise.
Our guide to the main padel shots explains the basic lob, bandeja and smash. Here, the focus is what match evidence can tell you about the decisions around them.
What have lob studies measured?
These four studies answer different questions. The table keeps their samples and outcomes separate rather than combining them into one supposed lob success rate.
| Study | Players and observations | What it found | What the finding cannot tell you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Muñoz Marín and colleagues, 2017 | 416 selected changes from back-court to net position across 14 men's matches, including professional and top regional competition | 252 of those actions used a lob, or 60.6% | The chance that any attempted lob will win the net. The sample already consists of positional exchanges. |
| Escudero-Tena and colleagues, 2020 | 1,324 selected passing actions from 14 women's WPT finals in 2018, involving ten leading players | Lob use was associated with gaining the attacking position | A conversion rate for all lobs. Actions entered the sample after the ball passed the attacking pair. |
| Villar-León and colleagues, 2024 | 2,063 lobs across ten professional matches in 2024, with 12 men and 12 women | The paper reports that 16.3% of men's lobs and 26.1% of women's lobs passed the opponents under its definition | The percentage that won the point or secured the net. Its passing measure required a bounce behind the opponents. |
| Ampuero, Fuentes-García and Baiget, 2025 | 10,321 shots from eight men's professional matches in 2022, involving 16 right-handed players | Our recalculation of its table identifies 2,739 lobs, with 2,637 kept in play | Whether those lobs improved position, passed the opponents or produced an easy overhead. |
Sources: original methods, results and tables in 1, 2, 3 and 4. These are observational studies, with repeated shots from a limited number of players and matches. Thousands of shots do not mean thousands of independent players. The 2017 sample includes advanced regional players, but none of these studies represents a typical mixed club session.
The 2020 paper contains a sample-size typo in its methods. Its abstract and tabulated counts support 1,324 actions. We use that total and avoid its inconsistent detailed outcome totals.
Does a lob have to pass both opponents?
The 2024 study counted a lob as passing the opposing pair when the ball bounced behind them before their next contact. A ball they hit before it bounced went into the other category. That definition records a specific event. It does not grade the comfort of the overhead or the time the defending pair gained. 1
The reported 16.3% and 26.1% therefore describe passing under that definition. They are not point-winning percentages, and the remaining lobs cannot all be labelled tactical failures.
The women's and men's figures came from five matches each in one tournament. They do not mean a woman at your club should expect a particular passing rate, or that sex alone explains the difference. Opponents, positioning and shot choices were not randomly assigned.
For practice, watch the next contact as well as the bounce. An overhead struck while moving back may give your pair a different next ball from a smash struck comfortably near the net. That is a practical way to review the shot, rather than a new result measured by PadelFormat.
What happened to 2,739 professional lobs?
We added the lob counts across the baseline, transition and net columns in Table 2 of the 2025 hitting-location study. This is our analysis of published counts, with no new match coding. 4
| Recorded outcome of the lob | Count | Share of the 2,739 lobs |
|---|---|---|
| Rally continued | 2,637 | 96.3% |
| Direct winner | 1 | Less than 0.1% |
| Forced error by the lob hitter | 15 | 0.5% |
| Unforced error by the lob hitter | 86 | 3.1% |
| Total | 2,739 | 100% |
Percentages use each count divided by 2,739, multiplied by 100, then rounded to one decimal. Rounding prevents the displayed categories from adding exactly to 100%. The denominator is all recorded lobs in this sample, including errors.
The three court-zone totals were 2,036, 535 and 168. They add to 2,739. The 2,637 continuing lobs come from 1,962 + 513 + 162. The forced-error category describes the lob player's unsuccessful stroke under pressure, rather than an error they forced from an opponent.
The study coded what happened to the shot. A continuing lob could leave a weak smash opportunity or send the opponent into a difficult recovery. Both can sit in the same category. The 96.3% figure therefore tells you how often these recorded lobs kept the rally alive, without telling you how often they were good tactical choices.
When reviewing your own play, keep “in” and “useful” as separate notes. Otherwise, a lob that repeatedly gifts an easy overhead can look successful on your score sheet.
Should you lob down the line, through the middle or cross-court?
Use the opponents' positions and the target you can control to make that choice. Be cautious about advice that turns professional shot patterns into a rule for every rally.
The 2024 paper found an association between direction and its passing outcome in the men's sample. It found no statistically significant association in the women's sample. The men's direction wording conflicts between its abstract, Results and Discussion, so it does not provide a clean basis for declaring one target universally best. 1
Its men's Figure 4 also needs careful reading. The percentages describe the direction mix within passing and non-passing groups. A percentage shown beside a direction is not automatically the proportion of lobs in that direction that succeeded.
As a practical starting point, pick a target that makes the next overhead awkward while leaving yourself enough margin to keep the ball in. Try each direction against the players you face. Record the reply instead of assuming the direction itself guarantees the result.
Both partners need a lob. The same study counted men's lobs almost evenly between right-side and left-side players, with a similarly even split in the women's sample. Leaving all the lobbing to one partner gives you fewer options when the ball arrives on the other side. 1
When should you follow your lob to the net?
Move when the shot gives your pair a workable approach. Hitting a lob is not, by itself, a signal to sprint forward.
For example, imagine your lob drops short and the opponent sets up underneath it. Coming in can leave you facing the next smash from an awkward position. Staying ready to defend is the sensible response. If the ball sends both opponents backwards and your partner can advance with you, you have a different opportunity.
Those are tactical examples, not observations collected for this article. The 2020 women's study supports separating a positional gain from the eventual point outcome. Play could continue after a pair gained the attacking position, and positions could change again during the rally. 3
Use our partner positioning guide for how to move together and cover the next ball. Avoid taking the net alone while your partner is still recovering at the back.
Practise the lob and the reply together
Try this suggested practice format with a coach or another pair. It is a way to observe your decisions, rather than a training protocol tested by these studies.
- Start one pair at the back and one pair near the net. Feed a manageable ball to the defending pair.
- The defender chooses a lob target. The opposing pair can play a normal overhead or let the ball bounce.
- Play on, so the lobbing pair has to choose whether to defend, recover or advance.
- Between repetitions, record whether the lob stayed in, where the next contact happened and whether both partners reached a useful position.
- Swap roles and repeat from both sides. Add harder feeds once the first decision feels controlled.
Keep the observations separate. A missed lob, a comfortable opposing smash, an awkward opposing overhead and a ball that passes both players need different corrections. If you only count balls landing inside an empty target area, you miss those differences.
If equipment is also on your shopping list, use the racket chooser to narrow your options, then compare the shortlisted rackets. These lob studies did not test rackets or identify a model that improves lob accuracy. Judge a possible purchase with your normal defensive shots as well as your overheads.
How we compared the evidence
We read the four original papers and compared their selection rules, players, match samples and outcome definitions. We recalculated the 2017 lob share from 252 ÷ 416 and the 2025 outcome table from its published counts. We did not pool the studies or estimate an average success rate.
We excluded inconsistent detailed figures rather than trying to repair them through guesswork. The papers do not establish a universal lob height, ideal landing distance or club-player conversion target. Use the research to decide what to watch, then review the reply your own lob produces.
Frequently asked questions
- Is a lob that gets hit overhead a bad lob?
- It may be, particularly if it gives the opponent an easy attack. It may also buy recovery time or force an uncomfortable contact. Judge the reply and your pair's position as well as whether the ball passed the opponents.
- Do professional players win many points directly with lobs?
- In the 2025 men's sample analysed here, only one of the 2,739 recorded lobs was a direct winner. That does not measure points won later in a rally after a lob helped change position.
- Is cross-court always the safest lob?
- The evidence reviewed here does not establish that rule. Opponent position, the incoming ball and your control of the target still need to guide the choice. A frequently used direction is not proof of a higher success rate.
- Should beginners copy the professional percentages?
- Use them to understand the measured outcomes, rather than as personal targets. Most players in these samples were professionals, and the studies did not test a beginner coaching programme.
Sources
- 1. Villar-León and colleagues. Playing High: Strategic Use of the Lob in Professional Padel. Applied Sciences, 2024. Ten professional matches, with direction-reporting inconsistencies noted above.
- 2. Muñoz Marín and colleagues. Analysis of the use and effectiveness of lobs to recover the net in the context of padel. Retos, 31, 19–22, 2017. Full text.
- 3. Escudero-Tena and colleagues. Use and Efficacy of the Lob to Achieve the Offensive Position in Women's Professional Padel. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020.
- 4. Ampuero, Fuentes-García and Baiget. The Influence of Hitting Locations on Shot Outcomes in Professional Men's Padel. Applied Sciences, 2025.