The chiquita is a soft, dipping ball played from mid-court at the net pair's feet, forcing them to volley up from below the tape. It exists because the net is worth so much in padel: playing from the net zone gives the highest chance of winning the point — 82% when serving and 74% when returning in professional men's padel (Prieto-Lage et al., 2024, Applied Sciences), so you need more than one way to disturb them. The chiquita is the lob's quieter sibling: lower risk than a passing shot, more surprising than another lob, and at its best when you're inside the service line under moderate pressure.
Every club player learns the lob first. Fewer learn the chiquita, and it shows: watch an amateur match and you'll see the same pattern on repeat, lob, lob, lob, then a desperate attempt to pass two players standing exactly where they want to be. The chiquita is the missing third option, and it's worth understanding properly, both what it is and, more importantly, when it actually makes sense.
What is a chiquita in padel?
Direct answer: a chiquita is a soft, low-trajectory shot, usually played from mid-court or just behind the service line, that dips at the feet of the pair at the net. The name is Spanish for "little one", and that's the whole idea: take the pace off, keep it low, and make the net players volley up from below net height.
It is not a passing shot. You're not trying to win the point. You're trying to force a weak, rising volley that you or your partner can attack, or that lets you advance and take the net yourselves. Think of it as a question you ask the net pair: can you create something from ankle height? Most club players can't.
Why do I need a chiquita at all?
Direct answer: because the net is where padel is won, and the pair holding it will beat you if you can't disturb them. playing from the net zone gives the highest chance of winning the point — 82% when serving and 74% when returning in professional men's padel (Prieto-Lage et al., 2024, Applied Sciences), and 80% of all points are won from the net zone (Martín-Miguel et al., 2023). If your only tool for dealing with net players is the lob, you become predictable, and predictable lobs get smashed.
There's a second reason, and it's about how padel points actually work. The professional data shows the serve's advantage is temporary: in the men's game it fades by around the 12th shot, in the women's game after the 7th (Zurano Clemente & Vives, 2026). The serving pair takes the net behind most serves, but their grip on the point loosens as the rally extends. Your job from the back is to survive the early exchanges without donating, then flip the point. The chiquita is a survival-and-flip tool: low risk, rally-extending, and quietly corrosive to the net pair's advantage.
The lob does the same job by going over; the chiquita does it by going under, at the feet. Used together they make the net pair defend two heights at once. Used alone, either one becomes a pattern to feed on. We've written about the overhead route in when to lob; the chiquita is the ground-floor alternative.
When should I play a chiquita?
The chiquita is a situational shot. The conditions that make it work:
- You're at mid-court, not pinned deep. The shot needs a short, controlled travel distance. From behind the back glass, the ball has too far to fly and too much time to sit up. From around the service line, it can dip before it reaches their racket.
- The ball is at a comfortable height. A chiquita off a ball at knee-to-waist height is control; off a high ball it wastes an attacking chance, and off a shoelace ball it's a gamble.
- The net pair is tight to the net or leaning for the smash. A pair crowding the net expecting your lob is exactly the pair a dipping ball at the feet embarrasses. If they're hanging back near the service line, the chiquita sits up into their strike zone, lob instead.
- You have a plan for the reply. The chiquita earns a weak, upward volley. Someone has to be moving forward to collect it. Play it, then advance, or it's just a slow ball you gave away.
And when not to play it: under heavy pressure, off a fast low ball, or from deep. In those moments the percentage play is the reset, high, deep, safe, because a mis-hit chiquita is the worst ball in padel: slow, low-net clearance, and short. It either clips the tape or sits up mid-court as a gift.
Is the chiquita a return of serve?
It can be, used sparingly. The return in padel is overwhelmingly a continuity shot, more than 90% of returns simply keep the point alive, and clean return winners are nearly absent at elite level (Zurano Clemente & Vives, 2026). That's the right mental model for the chiquita return too: you're not going for a winner, you're refusing to give the server a comfortable first volley. A dipping return at the incoming server's feet, mixed in among standard returns and lob returns, keeps the serving pair honest about how fast they close. The fundamentals of that whole decision are in the padel return.
How do I hit a chiquita?
Technique, in coaching terms rather than numbers, because the research literature has plenty to say about whether net pressure works and very little yet on the chiquita specifically (that's the honest caveat: the tactical case here rests on net-dominance data, not on chiquita-specific studies):
- Short swing, open face, soft grip. It's closer to a block with touch than a stroke.
- Contact out in front, knees bent. The shot is played from the legs. Standing tall produces floaters.
- Aim at feet, not lines. Your target is the space the net player's racket can't comfortably reach, ankle height, ideally at the body or the middle player's inside foot. The middle is forgiving; the sidelines are not.
- Clear the net by little, but clear it. This is a margin shot played with small margin, which is exactly why it's an option, not a habit.
- Disguise it. The best chiquitas start looking like lobs or drives. If your preparation announces the shot, the net pair simply steps in and volleys it away.
The chiquita won't show up on your highlight reel. What it shows up in is the shape of your points: fewer smashed lobs against you, more weak volleys to attack, more rallies flipped from defence to attack. Whether it's actually working in your matches is exactly the kind of thing that's invisible from inside the game and obvious on video. PADEXA watches every rally from one phone video and tells you which of your choices is costing you the most points, with your own clips as proof. First match free at padexa.ai.
If you want to keep pulling this thread: the bigger picture on padel video analysis, then the best shots in padel, ranked by what actually wins points, then why am i not improving at padel?.
Sources
- Escudero-Tena A, et al. (2024). Applied Sciences.
- Martín-Miguel I, Escudero-Tena A, Muñoz D, Sánchez-Alcaraz BJ (2023). Performance Analysis in Padel: A Systematic Review. Journal of Human Kinetics.
- Zurano Clemente A, Vives F (2026). Analysis of Tactical Indicators in Professional Padel: A Narrative Review of the Serve, Return, and Point Finishing. Padel Scientific Journal, 4(2), 227–244.
More numbers: 45 padel statistics every player should know.