Forehand Topspin

Neil Unknown Asked 16 years ago

I find that when I try to return topspin/flat shots that stay low to the table with my own topspin i very often come up short and hit the ball into the net, and even my successful shots lack the necessary margin of error, barely sneaking over the net.  Is there any general advice you can give for this problem without a swing analysis, because I'm very short on cash (college student).  Thanks, you have a great site!

Alois Rosario Answered 16 years ago

Hi Neil,

Playing topspin against topspins that stay low is a very advanced stroke.  If the ball is going into the net maybe you need to open the face of your bat a little and brush the ball up a bit more.  Perhaps you are brushing over the ball too much.  Brush the stroke and generate as much topspin as you can yourself.  By doing this you can hit the ball higher over the net because your topspin will bring the ball down.

Against a low, flat ball you need to swing a little more vertically.

PingSkills is looking to do a lesson on topspin against topspin in the next couple of weeks so watch out for it.