How To Feel Topspin In Tennis The Way A Pro Hits It

While various devices are available to help you feel the topspin of a tennis stroke like a forehand or a backhand, they are relatively expensive and might be used for only a short period of time before you don’t need them anymore.

In addition, while you can experiment with trying to feel the topspin, you don’t really know how that should feel when a more skilled player hits topspin.

This raises two questions: How should a topspin feel, and what are the different variations and adjustments you have to make during the game in terms of topspin to control the ball well?

There’s a very simple way to demonstrate that without any need for special tools. Your coach or a higher-skilled player can easily help you feel how they hit a topspin.

Feeling And Understanding The Topspin And Its Variations

I help players feel the topspin by simply hitting them on the back of the shoulder (gently, of course).

(Special thanks to Julio for helping demonstrate this concept.)

I first hit them directly, which we call “flat” in tennis, so that they can feel what a flat or direct hit feels like.

Then I hit them at a slight angle. That means I hit them “partially”.

That’s actually how we hit topspin on a more advanced level.

We don’t “brush” the ball, but we “graze” it.

The idea of brushing the ball is fine for a total beginner to give them a really clear mental image of topspin and get them started.

I like to use the idea of “rolling” the ball against a wall or a partner’s racket.

You can even do it yourself, as you can see in this video (also, you can see that I am not the only one teaching topspin with a rolling idea):

But, once we play at higher speed on a higher level, the idea of brushing or rolling doesn’t apply very often when we want to hit the ball with topspin. (Note, however, that it applies on heavy topspin shots like a topspin lob or loopier balls, perhaps from defense.)

A much better idea and feel is to imagine grazing the ball.

Here’s the dictionary definition of the verb “graze”:

verb (used with object), grazed, graz·ing.
1. to touch or rub lightly in passing.
2. to scrape the skin from; abrade:
(The bullet just grazed his shoulder.)

When we graze the ball, we don’t slow down the racket.

In fact, we just partially hit the ball with the same or even an accelerated racket head movement.

In contrast, the idea of brushing typically causes players to slow down the racket in order to execute the brushing motion.

By doing so, you’re losing the speed of your shot and the amount of topspin since you’re slowing down your racket at contact.

(I explained this same idea in another way in one my previous articles on advanced topspin technique.)

Another thing to keep in mind when it comes to grazing the ball is that the more we are inside the court (closer to the net), the less we need to hit the ball directly and the more we have to graze it.

Consider a situation when we’re well inside the court attacking a short ball.

If we hit the ball too “fully” (too flat), we’ll give the ball too much power, and it will fly long because we have way less court to hit into.

Therefore, we need to hit the ball partially (graze it) in order to apply lots of topspin but not lots of power.

As you now see, hitting a topspin forehand or backhand is not just one simple task or movement but a skill that requires the ability to hit the ball very precisely.

Developing The Skill Of Precision When Hitting Topspin

One of the biggest challenges of the game of tennis is adjusting your stroke according to the incoming ball (high, low, topspin, slice, fast, slow, etc.), your position on the court and the direction you want to hit.

So, when it comes to topspin, you need that skill or precision in order to adjust the RATIO of hitting fully into the ball and partially hitting the ball.

In other words, you need different ratios of flat and topspin – meaning hitting straight into the ball (horizontal vector of the racket path) and hitting the ball partially (vertical vector of the racket path).

If you’re far behind the baseline hitting a defensive shot, you need to hit well into the ball with some topspin because you need the ball to fly far.

But, if you’re inside the court attacking a short ball, you need a different ratio of flat and topspin vectors.

You need to hit the ball less directly and more just graze it.

This skill cannot, of course, be developed by you reading and theoretically understanding this article and consequently being able to play with different topspin ratios.

It requires specific drills that develop the skill of precisely hitting the ball with the right amount of topspin.

The most fundamental way to begin are by completing mini tennis drills (playing within service boxes) because hitting the ball with topspin and keeping the ball in the service box requires you to hit the ball very precisely.

If you are not precise, you’ll immediately hit the ball too long or into the net, and that gives you instant feedback on how to adjust on the next shot.

Playing full court, of course, gives you a much greater margin for error, and you may be hitting the ball quite imprecisely while still landing it in the court.

If you play this way, you may not realize that that same stroke won’t work well at higher speeds.

I will post more ideas in the future on how to develop the skill of spinning the ball in tennis, but for now, you can just experiment with these 3 drills (players play cross court):

• The coach plays a slow, floaty slice, and the player hits topspin.
• The coach plays a topspin, and the player has to stop the ball with slice and then play topspin.
• The coach and the player both play topspin.

I invite you to experiment with the idea of grazing the ball (instead of brushing it) when you hit topspin shots (especially inside the court when dealing with short balls) and let us know how it works for you in the comments below.