Thanks for playing!
It's definitely a tricky game at first, I'm still working on how to improve that.
Dashing tends to overshoot, and you have to run back to where the ball is, but it' usually too late.
Hitting the ball coming at you at an angle is harder, cause it often just touches the corner of the hitbox, ad you don't get enough time
I think these parts get easier as you play. I've thought about letting you cancel dashes by hitting the dash button again (or perhaps another input?) but I'd worry about accidentally immediately cancelling by mashing dash or whatever.
Diagonal hits don't register properly all the time, and you get a forward hit instead, but that might me just my keyboard.
Did you try using the "allow late directional inputs" setting? It basically lets you alter the direction for a few frames after you've hit the attack button, so it might be easier to get diagonals off that way.
Definitely needs a better name