Beginner's guide: your first ten minutes

Last updated: 18 August 2026

You can enter a match without creating an account, as a guest, and hit your first balls in under a minute. This page covers what you need during that first quarter of an hour, and the three habits that separate a newcomer from someone who can sustain a rally.

The controls

There is no hit button. You strike the ball by colliding with it: the direction and speed of your movement at the moment of contact entirely determine where it goes. That is the game's only mechanic, and everything else follows from it.

On a phone, hold the device in landscape. The game will ask you to if you are in portrait: the court is twice as wide as it is tall, and in portrait there is literally no room to see the ball coming.

The "down" key is your best friend

It is the control beginners never use and good players hold down half the time. Holding down while airborne makes you drop noticeably faster than gravity alone.

Two uses. First: you jumped too early and the ball arrives half a second after your peak — instead of floating and watching it go by, you dive and take it on the ground. Second, more aggressive: by accelerating your descent at the moment of contact you add downward speed to the ball. That is where the smash starts.

The three mistakes that cost the most points

Returning everything on the first contact

You get three touches per side. A beginner uses one. On a fast ball the first contact is almost always bad: you are out of position, you strike while backing up, the ball goes anywhere. Get into the habit of lifting it high on the first contact, calmly repositioning underneath it, and striking on the second or third.

Camping at the net

The net is a magnet, because that is where you score. But your half stretches a long way behind you, and a ball lobbed over your head is unanswerable if you are standing on the post. The correct resting position is mid-court: from there you cover both short and deep.

Jumping at every ball

In the air you can no longer correct your horizontal position much, and you come down on a fixed timer. A badly judged jump is a point lost without touching the ball. Jump when the ball is high and you are already underneath it; otherwise stay grounded and move.

The order to discover the game in

Bots first. The first one, Naïf, follows the ball without guile and gives you time to understand the bounces. Career mode chains them in increasing difficulty and unlocks the next when you beat the previous one — it is the game's tutorial, disguised as progression. All six opponents are detailed on the bots page.

Then friendly matches. No ranking impact, adjustable format, no serve countdown. That is where you try things without consequence.

Ranked once you can sustain a five-ball rally. Your first ranked match places you at 1000 ELO, and the first ten count double, both ways: corrections there are deliberately brutal so your real level is found quickly. The detail is on the ranked page.

Tournaments when you want stakes. Eight seats, single elimination, short matches. Empty seats are filled with bots, so a tournament starts even when there are not eight humans online.

Do you need an account?

To play, no: guest entry is complete, and gives you the bots and friendly matches. An account becomes necessary as soon as something needs to be kept: your ELO and match history, your level and quests, your cosmetics, your public profile in the world ranking. The account is free and asks only for an email and a handle.

You can also watch without playing: Observer mode shows a live match from a spectator's viewpoint, which remains the fastest way to see how a better player places their three touches.