Your mental trick for not screwing easy balls

I don’t think it’s about having a mental trick, it’s playing high confidence, high quality shots all the time. When you have an easy ball, instead of thinking to finish the point, focus on playing shots that put pressure on your opponent that have a high chance of getting in.

I keep reminding myself that my feet needs to be working. All the bad shots or easy balls as you say, comes from bad preparation.

Don't change your mind after you've made it. The problem with easy balls is that you have a lot of time and a lot of options. So you end up changing your mind - maybe go X4, maybe con todo, maybe volley into the fence? So you end up screwing it. Decide early what you want to do, like with other shots, and stick with it.

Ur brain tries to finish the rally, when u should actually prioritize continuing it.  You are trying a shot that requires more skill than you probably have. Therefore your chance of missing are high. Play the safer/slower shot instead, look for angles rather than power, put the pressure on the opponent, let them miss. If they return an incredible shot, good for them, at least you didn’t give them free points. I am more frustrated when I do stupid things and I give away free points, than when my opponent manages to return an incredible shot, which I applaud !

I think there are two factors: the situation comes suddenly (which means you don't have a ready plan to execute -> you end up hesitating) and also you're building a huge pressure for yourself to finish the point. It keeps getting easier with experience, but both of these can be managed with practice (in coaching session or elsewhere). Just have a plan on what to do: smash, x4, soft push into corner/root of the fence etc.

Lots of mental stuff said here, but the fact is that to finish a point you have to practice finishing the point. You volley maybe 100x during a set, but you will have 1 or 2 opportunities for a x4 and maybe another 2 for a chancletazo. So if you play a lot, you practice the common shots, but the rare ones barely get practiced... You have to practice those kind of shots so your body executes them automatically and be fluid doing them, and for that you need baskets (coach or ball machine), and then you will no longer miss them.

Keep. It. Simple. That’s one of the main things, especially when you have easy shots. Don’t rush it. Everyone in padel is rushing the game. There’s moments for that but mostly not. Keep the pressure on the players, that in itself will create more chances or will force them to make mistakes.

Coincidentally, sandy from the padel school released a video about just that: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV8x8\_rx1dE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV8x8_rx1dE)

Thinking any shot is unscrewable is already a bad start. It puts pressure on you. If you miss an unscrewable shot, are you a horrible player? What if you miss this one? You just can't miss! Everything that gets you out of the moment and thinking about future consequences will hurt your game. So the trick is to do whatever keeps you concentrated on playing the best shot at the present moment instead of worrying about the future, and what will happen will happen.

You know when you get a ball that's suitable for a finisher and your mind sees 3-4 different outcomes? I have that a lot and more often than not, it leades to errors. What is working for me is making my mind and not changing. As the ball is comoing I already say to my self, "bajada to the left side", "bajada to the middle", "bandeja accross", "x3 attempt", "flat smash". Easy soft volley. To be honest, most of the times I don't have to say where is going, because the answer is usually, the middle.

There is no trick. A padel game could get lost rather quickly if you think too much. Most of the time I know what I have done wrong and I don’t try to think much about it. Focus on the next point.

Bad players will relax on easy balls. Good players will still be active and focused and will relax after the point is actually done.

For me it really works to decide what shot you will do and stick to it. So when I tell myself DROPSHOT, that's what I focus on. Before I would be like DROPSHOT, NO SMASH. NO VOLLEY and fumble those easy shots.

IMO Slow down and don’t think it’s easy ball. It’s easy to get into thinking “oh it’s very simple slow ball approaching me I can do x,y,z” Just treat it like normal ball, commit decision what you are doing with it and do it. No fancy fake outs and flash shots until you get confident and consistent. It’s usually when people can’t commit to one play make those mistakes