New · Simulator

The Simulator: your phone is the racket, your TV is the court

Mirror your phone's screen to a TV, hold the phone like your racket, and you are standing on the baseline. The racket on screen moves as you move. An opponent hits the ball to you, you swing when it gets there, and the shot flies where your racket face sent it. Tennis, padel and pickleball, on iPhone and Android.

New in the app, marked beta. Updated 4 November 2026 · 6 minute read

A point in each sport, recorded in the app. The speed card after each shot is the estimated ball speed, with racket-head speed under it.

Short answer: the Simulator is a swing-timing game played on your TV with the phone as the racket. Three modes: Rally against an opponent who plays your shots back, Ball machine feeds, and Target practice. Setup is your phone's screen mirroring plus a one-minute calibration. You need a TV, about two meters of clear space and a firm grip on the phone. It is part of ShadowSwing Pro. Subscribe, or start the 7-day free trial on the yearly plan.

How it works

Mirror your screen

Send your phone's screen to the TV the way your phone already does it: from an iPhone, AirPlay screen mirroring to an Apple TV or a Mac, or an HDMI adapter; from an Android phone, the screen cast in Quick Settings. The court fills the TV edge to edge.

Hold it like your racket

Grip the phone like a racket handle, screen toward the TV like the strings. Any grip works, right- or left-handed. The racket on the TV follows the phone live.

Calibrate once

Point the top of the phone at the TV and hold still through a short countdown, then face the TV and freeze where you would hit a forehand, then a backhand. That is how the court learns where you stand and which way you face. A minute, and redo it if your shots feel off.

Play

The ball comes to you and bounces; swing when it gets there. The direction of your shot comes from where your racket face points at contact, the depth from how high the ball crosses the net. Keep the rally going, work through a drill, or chase a target.

Three modes

Rally

The opponent plays your shots back. Keep the rally going as long as you can. The opponent plays the way club rallies go: a middle ball mostly comes back middle, a cross-court ball mostly comes back cross-court, with the odd short ball, drop shot and lob. Your view runs to where the ball will land and recovers toward the middle after each hit, so you hit from wherever the last shot took you. Three difficulties:

Easy: a wide timing window, mostly rally balls, and the opponent plays the ball back where it came from.
Medium: the normal window and a mix of flat and slice balls; the opponent changes direction now and then.
Hard: a tight window, more flat and slice, and the opponent goes down the line, drops and lobs more, closer to the lines.

Rally counts shots, not points: the summary shows your hits, your longest rally and your average rally.

Ball machine

A machine on the far side feeds balls one after another, on a cadence. Hit them back and build your timing. Pick the drill: Mixed, Baseline, Volleys, Overheads or Approach shots, which puts you at the net for the volley and back on the baseline for the next feed.

Target practice

The ball waits in front of you. Swing, and score by how close your shot lands to the target, whose area and size you choose. Here the score counts where the ball really lands, so aim with the face and clear the net by the right amount. The game is short and the final score is on the summary, so it is the mode to go back to when you want a number to beat.

Three sports, three courts

Pick the sport when you set up a game. Each has its own court, its own racket or paddle on screen, and an opponent who plays that sport's patterns.

Tennis. A hard court. The opponent rallies cross-court and down the line, with drops and lobs on the harder settings.

Padel. Glass walls, and the ball comes off the back glass. The opponent lobs to take the net, answers your lobs with bandejas, and smashes.

Pickleball. The kitchen line. The opponent dinks, mixes drops and drives, and attacks any ball that sits up.

What you see on the TV

Your racket, live. The court from your own eyes at the baseline, with the racket or paddle in the foreground following the phone as you move it.
A speed card after each shot. The estimated ball speed, with racket-head speed under it, and the call: your timing, and Net, Long or Wide. It is the Shot info switch; turn it off to just play.
Where the ball goes. By default your drives always land in: the direction from your racket face, the depth from how high the ball crosses the net. A realistic ball-flight setting lets your drives fly with the pace, launch angle and spin of your swing, so they can go long, wide or into the net, and a weak swing is punished.
Timing that fits your TV. A mirrored picture arrives a little late. The Simulator watches when you swing on the first few balls and lines the ball up with you; switch it off to play on the raw timing.
A summary. Every game ends on a summary: hits, longest and average rally, or the final score in Target practice.

The ball speed is the same estimate as everywhere else in the app: a ball leaves the face a little faster than the racket head that hits it, on a clean hit in the middle of the face with the ball at rest. A rally ball arrives with speed of its own, a mishit leaves slower, so treat it as a ballpark, not a radar. How racket-head speed is measured.

What you need

Your phone. An iPhone with iOS 17 or later, or an Android phone with Android 8.0 or later. The phone is the racket; there is no real racket and no ball.
A TV it can mirror to. AirPlay or an HDMI adapter from an iPhone (a Mac works too), screen cast from an Android phone. A wired connection gives the tightest timing.
Room to swing. About two meters of clear space, facing the TV. Hold the phone firmly; a strap case or a wrist lanyard is a good idea.
A minute to calibrate, the first time and whenever your shots feel off.
The phone's speaker for the hit sound. Bluetooth audio lands a beat late.

What it is not

Not a camera. The app reads the phone's motion, nothing else. It cannot see your grip, stance, footwork or contact point, and your view moves by hitting, not by running.
Not a match. Rally keeps the ball going and counts shots; nobody wins a point. Target practice is the mode with a score.
Not a radar. The ball speed is an estimate from your racket-head speed, for comparing your own swings.
Not finished. It is marked beta in the app. If a ball feels early or late, a shot goes somewhere strange, or a sport needs a better opponent, tell us: [email protected].

Questions

Do I need a TV for the Simulator?

In practice, yes. The court also shows on the phone's own screen, but you are swinging that phone, so you need a screen in front of you to watch: a TV, or on iPhone a Mac. Mirror the phone's screen to it and the court fills it edge to edge.

Which TVs and connections work?

Any screen your phone's own screen mirroring reaches. From an iPhone, that is AirPlay screen mirroring to an Apple TV, an AirPlay-capable TV or a Mac, or a wired HDMI adapter. From an Android phone, it is the screen cast built into the phone, to a TV or dongle that accepts it. The app adds nothing of its own: if your phone can mirror to the screen, the Simulator plays on it.

Does the mirroring delay spoil the timing?

A mirrored picture reaches the TV a little late, and that would make every ball feel early. So the Simulator watches when you swing on the first few balls and lines the ball up with you; you can turn this off and play on the raw timing. A wired connection gives the tightest feel, a laggy wireless link a looser one. The sound stays on the phone, so keep it on the phone's speaker, not Bluetooth.

What decides where my shot goes?

Your racket face. The direction of a drive comes from where the face points at contact, and the depth from how high the ball clears the net. By default your drives always land in; a realistic ball-flight setting lets them fly with the pace, launch angle and spin of your swing, so they can go long, wide or into the net, and a weak swing is punished. The app cannot see your body, so it is not judging your grip, stance or footwork, only the phone's motion.

Which sports does the Simulator cover?

Tennis, padel and pickleball, each on its own court with its own opponent: a hard court, a glass-walled padel court where the ball comes off the back glass, and a pickleball court with the kitchen line and a dinking opponent. You pick the sport when you set up a game.

I am left-handed. Does it work?

Yes. There is a left-handed switch in the Simulator's setup, and the calibration takes your own forehand and backhand positions, whichever hand you play with.

Is the Simulator free?

ShadowSwing is free to download, no account needed. The Simulator is part of ShadowSwing Pro: yearly at $39.99 USD with a 7-day free trial, about $3.33 a month, or monthly at $4.99 USD, cancel any time. Prices vary by region. The Simulator is new and marked beta in the app; a feedback card after each game goes straight to us.