ShadowSwing The swing trainer for tennis, padel and pickleball
Practice your swings anywhere. Hold your iPhone like a racket or paddle handle, swing, and hear the ball hit at the exact moment your wrist releases. Follow a guided workout, or replay a single stroke in 3D.
How it works
Your phone is the racket
ShadowSwing works like a mechanical training stick — the kind that clacks when you accelerate through the swing — except it is tuned to reward the whip of a real stroke instead of a stiff push.
Hold it like a handle
Grip the iPhone the way you grip a racket. The top of the phone is the racket tip, the screen is the string face. Clear the space around you and hold on tight.
Swing a real stroke
Forehand, backhand, serve, volley. The accelerometer and gyroscope track the phone through the stroke, on the device, in real time.
Hear the contact
A hit sound fires at the moment your wrist releases at speed. Push stiffly and nothing happens; let the racket head go and it snaps. That feedback is the whole training loop.
Three modes
Rally, follow a workout, or study one stroke
Free Hitting
Every whip hits.
Rally mode. Every whip hits. The app counts your swings and runs a timer, so a session in a hallway, a hotel room or a warm-up before a match becomes something you can actually measure.
- A hit on every clean release
- Live swing count
- Session timer
Workouts
A coach calls the strokes.
Guided drills with a coach voice. It calls the stroke and the count, the hit keeps score, and the rests are timed. Warm-ups, groundstroke ladders, serve days and cardio minutes for each sport; Pro users build their own.
- Coach voice in English, French and Spanish
- Rep-based and timed blocks
- Presets for tennis, padel and pickleball
- Voice off? Haptics carry the cues
Shot Analysis
One stroke, replayed in 3D.
Play one stroke, then watch it replayed on a 3D court: the path the racket head travelled, where the string face was pointing through the swing, and your peak racket-head speed. Orbit the replay and slow it down.
- Swing path drawn in 3D
- String face orientation through contact
- Peak racket-head speed
- Orbit and slow motion
Who it is for
Who it is for, and who it is not for
It is for
ShadowSwing is for tennis players who want to practice forehand, backhand, serve and volley swings at home without a court, ball or partner. It suits players warming up before a match, players keeping their timing through the off-season or an injury layoff, players travelling without a racket, and coaches who want a swing-timing drill a student can repeat at home. Beginners use it to feel what a released wrist is supposed to sound like; club players use it to keep a groove.
It is not for
ShadowSwing does not measure ball speed, spin or where a ball would land, because there is no ball. It does not watch your body, so it cannot correct your grip, stance, footwork or contact point. It is not a coach, not a physiotherapy or medical tool, and not a substitute for hitting real balls on a court. It runs on iPhone only — there is no iPad, Apple Watch, Android or web version.
ShadowSwing Pro
Swing as much as you want
The free app is a real app: Free Hitting, Workouts, Shot Analysis, the hit sound and sharing are all there. You get 30 swings, 5 Shot Analysis replays and 1 workout per day, the first day included. Pro removes the ceiling.
What Pro adds
- Unlimited swings, every day. No daily count.
- Racket-head speed on every swing, in km/h or mph, with your all-time record.
- Unlimited Shot Analysis replays.
- Every preset workout, unlimited, and build your own with the coach voice.
- The full sound pack and shuffle — every sport's real hit is free; Pro adds the rest of the recorded pack, rotating at random if you like.
- Advanced hit tuning for how hard you want the release to be.
What stays free
- Free Hitting with the hit sound
- Swing count and session timer
- 30 swings per day after that
- 5 Shot Analysis replays a day
- 1 guided workout a day, with the coach voice
- Share a replay as an image or a video
- No account, no ads, no tracking
Lifetime
$24.99One-time purchase. Pro forever on your Apple Account.
Annual
$12.99/yr7-day free trial. Cancel any time in your Apple ID settings.
Free
$0No account. 30 swings, 5 replays and 1 workout every day.
Prices are in USD and vary by region. Purchases and refunds are handled by Apple.
Privacy
Nothing leaves your phone
Motion data from the accelerometer and gyroscope is processed on the device and never sent anywhere. There is no account to create, no server to talk to, and only anonymous, switch-off-able usage counts and crash reports (TelemetryDeck) and no other third-party SDK. Purchases go through Apple. Read the full privacy policy.
Requires an iPhone running iOS 17 or later. Available in English, French and Spanish.
FAQ
Questions
Does ShadowSwing work on any iPhone?
It works on any iPhone that runs iOS 17 or later. The app reads the accelerometer and gyroscope, and every iPhone that supports iOS 17 has both. There is no iPad, Apple Watch or Android version.
Do I need a racket, a ball, a court or a partner?
No. You hold the iPhone itself like a racket handle: the top of the phone is the racket tip and the screen is the string face. You need about two metres of clear space around you and nothing else. For the drills themselves, see our guides to shadow swing drills and practising tennis alone at home.
What does the hit sound mean?
It means your wrist released the racket head through contact — the whip. Speed alone does not trigger it, and a stiff, pushed swing stays silent on purpose: the silence is the feedback. That one sound is the whole idea of the app; everything else (workouts, the 3D replay, racket speed) is built around it.
Does it work for padel and pickleball?
Yes. Pick your sport in the app and everything follows it: the replay shows a padel racket on a glass-walled court, or a pickleball paddle and the kitchen line, the head-speed lever matches the shorter racket, and the hit sensitivity starts easier for those two sports because the strokes are shorter and quicker. You can adjust it in Advanced settings. See our guides to padel training at home and pickleball practice at home, both without a court.
What are Workouts, and does the app know which stroke I hit?
A workout is a list of blocks: a stroke and a number of reps, a stroke for a set time, or a rest. A coach voice calls each one — "Forehands. Twenty. Go." — each hit counts a rep, and rests are timed for you. The app does not watch you, so it cannot verify that you actually hit a backhand; it counts a rep whenever your wrist releases at speed. Doing the stroke it asked for is on you. There are presets for tennis, padel and pickleball, the voice speaks English, French and Spanish, and you can turn it off and let the haptics carry the cues. One workout a day is free; Pro is unlimited and lets you build your own.
Why does the hit sound late through my AirPods or Bluetooth speaker?
Bluetooth audio adds latency, and the whole point of the app is that the hit lands exactly when your wrist releases. Use the iPhone's built-in speaker, or wired headphones. Bluetooth will feel a beat behind.
Does ShadowSwing measure ball speed?
No. There is no ball. The app estimates racket-head speed from the phone's own motion: the accelerometer gives how fast your hand is travelling, and the gyroscope adds the rotation, because a racket head sits roughly 55 cm past your hand and sweeps a wider, faster arc when the wrist snaps. That extra is the whip the app trains. Treat it as a consistent number to improve against, not a radar reading, and do not compare it across sports — a padel racket and a pickleball paddle are shorter, so the same swing reads lower. The app explains all of this on a "how this is measured" screen.
Is my data private?
Yes. Motion data is processed on the device and never leaves it. There is no account, no server, anonymous usage counts and crash reports only (can be turned off) and no third-party SDK. Purchases are handled by Apple.
Does it replace a coach?
No. ShadowSwing trains the timing and release of your swing when you cannot get to a court. It cannot see your grip, footwork, stance or contact point, and it is not coaching advice.
What is free and what needs ShadowSwing Pro?
Free gives you Free Hitting, short Workouts, Shot Analysis, your sport's real hit sound and sharing replays as image or video: 30 swings, 5 Shot Analysis replays and 1 workout per day, the first day included. Pro adds unlimited swings every day, every preset workout, unlimited, plus the workout builder, racket-head speed on every swing with an all-time record, unlimited replays, the full recorded sound pack with shuffle, and advanced hit tuning.
How much does Pro cost?
Pro is either a one-time Lifetime purchase at $24.99 USD or an Annual subscription at $12.99 USD per year with a 7-day free trial. Prices vary by region.
What languages does the app support?
English, French and Spanish.
How do I cancel or get a refund?
Subscriptions are managed in your Apple ID settings, not in the app. Refunds are handled by Apple through reportaproblem.apple.com — we cannot issue them ourselves. See support for the steps.