Tournament, live camera and broken mindset

Disclaimer: Long read so If you want you can jump to the end of the text and read the question!!

I played in a tournament and there was a live YouTube video using a camera mounted in the top right player’s corner (where back and side glass connect). I’m a leftie (intermediate level) so the camera was either above my head or completely cross court. We managed to win 2 out of the 3 matches in group stage (the format is that a team must win 9 games to win the match – so average duration of play 30-45’ per match) and we’ve qualified for the round of 32.

I had the bad idea of relaxing on my couch with a glass of wine and watching on replay my matches. The camera wasn’t 100% professional, the frame refreshment rate was poor, everything seemed slower, but the quality of the video wasn’t the real problem… My performance was disappointing!!

Although I regularly train with a coach (in average once per 2 weeks for the last 1.5 year) no one has ever told me that my technique looks that bad… I had 3 different coaches and all of them were focusing on small modifications in my technique just to improve the effectiveness of my shots. But what I spotted on my video is completely different to what I thought I was doing and for sure not even close to what is expected by a “low” intermediate padel player. I know that in tournaments you play worse than in social matches (being more tense, nervous etc) but this affects only the outcome of the stroke, not the technique. No footwork, playing mostly with the arm/wrist and not with the body, huge preparation, funny moves of my hand in overheads and in follow through, I don’t play compact-I hit the ball far away from my body, no rhythm, no harmony… the list is endless. My positioning was OK (I know the areas I need some improvement), shot selection looked OK (if you can leave out the technique of the shots), angle selections OK, outcome of the shots OK (high percentage of success-very few mistakes), power/spin selections can be improved, lobes and serves better than the rest of the players but this is something I already knew. On the other hand, my teammate looked better in the video than I think he is.

I can easily understand a player’s level when I play with or against him in a match, I can recognize his/her strong/weak aspects of their game (technique, positioning, shot selection etc). In the club I play, whenever there are players I know that compete against each other in a tournament, I always place a bet with the coaches on who is going to win and guess what… 3/3 wins for me. For sure I know what a good padel player looks like!!

Am I harsh to myself? Maybe, but I’m always hard on my criticism (including others sometimes). It’s not a matter of perception; it’s the reality captured on video that my technique sucks… If you’ve managed to read up to this point, you know what’s coming next. My mindset is damaged! I’m afraid that in the qualifying match I’ll mess it up by overthinking my poor technique. For sure I can’t change my play-style in a weekend and I’ve shared my thoughts with my teammate. Most probably I’ll try to play my usual style and by Monday I’ll try to talk this through with my coach.

Question: has anyone questioned his technique after watching himself playing in a video and how do you change your mindset after this? Any ideas and suggestions will be more than appreciated.

PS don’t ask me to share the video… it’s more embarrassing than my wedding video when I was completely drunk 😊