A 2 minute read, written in August 2026 and read over again on 10 October 2026
Bandeja, víbora or smash: which overhead to hit and when
Every lob gives you a choice, and choosing wrong loses more points at club level than hitting badly does. The height of the ball and where you are standing decide it, not how you feel.
Three shots, three jobs
The bandeja holds the net. Sliced, hit at shoulder height with the racket face open, it lands deep and dies off the back glass without giving your opponents anything to hit. You finish the shot at the net, where you started. The víbora is the same movement with a lower contact and a sidespin that makes the ball skid off the glass toward the side wall. It is more aggressive and harder to control, and it wins points against players who cannot read the spin. The smash is the finisher: flat or with topspin, hit from a high contact, either through the court to the glass and out, or into the back glass and over the side fence. It ends points and, hit from the wrong place, ends yours.
Rule one: the height of the lob
If the lob is high enough to let you get under it comfortably, with the ball still in front of you and your shoulders turned, you can smash. If you are reaching, or the ball is coming down behind your head, you cannot. That is a bandeja, however much you want it to be a smash. Most club smash errors are bandejas hit with the wrong swing.
Rule two: where you are
Inside the service line, hitting a smash is safe: the ball reaches the glass with enough pace to come back to you or fly out. From the back of the court a smash arrives at the glass slow, rebounds to the middle and your opponents are at the net before you are. From deep, bandeja and recover. From the middle, bandeja unless the lob is short. From inside the service line, smash if it is high enough, víbora if it is not.
Your call
A lob goes to your partner at the net and they are setting up a smash. What should you do?
When your partner smashes, close the middle and get ready to volley the reply.
Rule three: where they are
Two opponents at the back glass are waiting for the smash and will return it. The bandeja to the deep corner keeps them there and makes them lob again, and every lob is a chance for a shorter one. Two opponents running in after a lob is the moment to hit the víbora to the side glass, or the smash at their feet. One deep and one short means play the ball at the short one.
Learning order
Bandeja first, until you can hit ten in a row deep to the same corner. Then the smash from inside the service line only, learning the one that comes back to you off the glass before the one that goes out. The víbora last. Players who learn them in the other order spend two years losing the net.
The tell you can watch for
Watch a good player's feet on a lob. They move back early and set up behind the ball. That is what gives them the choice. A player who starts moving when the ball is at its peak has no choice left, and hits whatever the ball allows. The overhead is decided by the first step, not the swing.