XNA: Regarding SpriteBatch.Draw()

Question

I was trying to develop a very simple ping pong game using XNA.

In my Draw() I am drawing the player paddles first then the ball as follows:

spriteBatch.Draw(myPlayer, myPlayer1Pos, null, Color.Aqua);
spriteBatch.Draw(myPlayer, myPlayer2Pos, null, Color.Aqua);
spriteBatch.Draw(myBall, myBallPos, Color.LawnGreen);

Now the problem is the ball is no longer displayed in the game window as shown below

If on the other hand I draw the ball before the player paddle

spriteBatch.Draw(myBall, myBallPos, Color.LawnGreen);
spriteBatch.Draw(myPlayer, myPlayer1Pos, Color.Aqua);
spriteBatch.Draw(myPlayer, myPlayer2Pos, Color.Aqua);

then the right hand side paddle is no longer visible as shown below:

Can anyone explain what is going wrong here?

edit: The complete Draw():

protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)
{
      GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);

      // TODO: Add your drawing code here
      spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.BackToFront, BlendState.AlphaBlend);

      spriteBatch.Draw(myBall, myBallPos, null, Color.LawnGreen);

      spriteBatch.Draw(myPlayer, myPlayer1Pos, null, Color.Aqua);
      spriteBatch.Draw(myPlayer, myPlayer2Pos, null, Color.Aqua);

      spriteBatch.Draw(myBkgTexture, graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Bounds, Color.Blue);

      spriteBatch.End();

      base.Draw(gameTime);
}

Answer 1

The first problem is that you're using SpriteSortMode.BackToFront which to put it simply, is not appropriate for this case because you're not even specifying the depth of your sprites. Just use the default mode instead which draws in the same order as your calls (just write spriteBatch.Begin() with no parameters). Also, it's strange that you're drawing the background after the other sprites. If it's the background it should come first otherwise it will occlude everything else.

Here's the corrected code, with some redundant parameters removed:

spriteBatch.Begin();
spriteBatch.Draw(myBkgTexture, graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Bounds, Color.Blue);
spriteBatch.Draw(myBall, myBallPos, Color.LawnGreen);
spriteBatch.Draw(myPlayer, myPlayer1Pos, Color.Aqua);
spriteBatch.Draw(myPlayer, myPlayer2Pos, Color.Aqua);
spriteBatch.End();

Answer 2

The issue seems to be with spriteBatch.Begin() which the wizard had generated with SpriteSortMode.BackToFront.

Using the default Begin() solves the issue.