How to Hit a Gancho in Padel: The Overhead Hook Shot

What Is a Gancho in Padel?

Gancho is Spanish for hook, and that is what the shot looks like: a long, straight arm swinging up and over the ball, the hand coming down through it like you are hooking something off a high shelf.

It is the overhead you play when a lob drifts over your non-dominant shoulder — the left shoulder if you are right-handed. You are still near the net, the ball has slipped behind your position, and there is no time to shuffle around it to set up a bandeja or vibora. Turning all the way around would hand your opponents the net. So you reach up instead, take the ball over the top of your head, and hook it back deep.

It is the missing piece in a lot of club players' overhead games. Plenty of people own a usable bandeja and a flashy smash, then quietly surrender the point every time a lob goes over the wrong shoulder.

Gancho vs Bandeja vs Vibora vs Smash

All four answer the same question — there is a ball above your head, now what? The pick comes down to where the ball is and how much time it left you.

• Smash — short lob, you are balanced underneath it, going for the point. Highest risk, highest reward.
• Vibora — the lob pushed you back, but you can still step into it on your hitting side. Heavy sidespin, built to apply pressure.
• Bandeja — a deep lob on your hitting side. A reset that buys time and keeps you at the net. Control over pace.
• Gancho — the lob is over your non-dominant shoulder and already past you. Taken high, over the head, straight arm.

The honest framing: the bandeja and the vibora are choices, while the gancho is usually a rescue.

You can run around a left-shoulder lob and hit a bandeja instead — but it costs two or three extra steps backward, opens a wide gap for your opponents, and leaves you no time to recover. The gancho's higher contact point lets you take the ball earlier and from further up the court.

When to Play a Gancho

Right-handers hit most of their ganchos from the right-hand side of the court, because that is where lobbed balls tend to travel over the left shoulder. Reach for it when:

• The lob arrives cross-court, down the middle, or down the line to your right-side position and sails over your left shoulder.
• You read the lob late and only have time to turn your shoulders, not your feet.
• Your opponents have crowded the net behind their own lob and you want to send them back.
• Backing up for a bandeja would strand your partner alone at the net.

If the lob goes over your hitting shoulder, you do not need a gancho — that is bandeja or vibora territory. Left-handers, mirror all of it.

Step-by-Step Technique

1. Footwork and Body Turn

Read the lob early and turn your shoulders sideways right away, pointing your non-dominant hand up at the ball. One or two crossover steps back is all you get — if you need more, the ball is too deep and you should be playing a defensive lob instead. Keep your weight moving up into the ball rather than drifting backward underneath it.

2. Contact Point

This is where most players pick up bad habits. The lob has gotten behind your court position — but the contact itself is still in front of your head, not behind it. Reach up and meet the ball over the top of your head with the arm fully extended.

The straight arm is non-negotiable. That extension buys height, and height is the entire point: contact above your head is what lets you stand further up the court and still hit down through the ball with real force.

3. Grip and Wrist

Use the same continental grip you use for every other overhead — there is no special gancho grip. Keep the wrist relaxed, let the racket head come over the top, and finish down and through the ball, hooking it rather than slapping it flat. Strike slightly downward and brush the back of the ball. Do not try to kill it: a gancho swung at full power sails long, because the ball is already travelling away from you.

4. Target

Aim at the side glass or the back fence, not at open floor. You want the ball to bounce, rebound off the obstruction, and die at the back of the court — that is what pins opponents deep and buys you time to re-set at the net.

Expect one quirk: because the contact point is so high, a gancho bounces higher than a bandeja. A ball sitting at chest height off the back glass is a gift to a decent opponent, so depth is what makes this shot safe.

Common Mistakes

• Letting the arm bend. A bent elbow drops the contact point, erases the height advantage, and turns the shot into a weak push.
• Backing up too far. Three steps back and you have conceded the net anyway — at which point you should have lobbed.
• Swinging for a winner. The gancho is a positional shot. Deep and heavy beats fast and flat.
• Landing it short. A short gancho bounces high in the middle of the court, the most attackable ball in padel.
• Square shoulders. If your chest faces the net, you cannot get the arm over the ball cleanly.

Drills to Groove It

• Shadow extension. No ball. Turn sideways, reach up, and swing the straight arm over and down ten times per set, so the extension survives match pressure.
• Left-shoulder feeds. Have a partner lob deliberately over your non-dominant shoulder, ten in a row, while you hold your net position. Target the side glass every ball.
• Glass-death targets. Put a cone a couple of feet off the back glass and make the ball's second bounce land behind it. This drills depth, the one variable that makes the shot work.
• Overhead decision drill. Have your partner mix lobs to both shoulders at random, and call the shot out loud — "bandeja," "gancho," "vibora" — before you hit it. Choosing the right overhead quickly is worth more than any single one being perfect.

Add the gancho and your overhead set is complete: a smash for the short ball, a vibora for pressure, a bandeja for the reset, and a hook for the one that got over your shoulder. That last one is the difference between losing the net and keeping it — and in padel, keeping the net is most of the game.

If lobs keep getting over your shoulder in the first place, the fix may be upstream, in defending the smash and reading the ball off the glass. If the Spanish names are still a blur, our padel glossary and the complete guide to padel shots lay out the full stroke library.