How to serve topspin tomahawk

Andrew Pape Asked 12 years ago

Hi Alois,

I've recently watched your video on receiving the topspin tomahawk serve.

Now I'm wondering about how to execute the topspin tomahawk serve itself. When I played years ago I could do both backspin tomahawks and topspin ones (with side-spin too), and I could alternate and cause my opponent trouble. Now that I'm at a much higher level I have forgotten how to do the old serve. Same goes for my practice partner. We can both do the backspin variety, as it's easy to hit the bottom half of the ball while it's dropping. To get the topspin, we need to contact the top of the ball, but how can you do this when the ball is descending during the serve? We just can't picture the action. I Hope you can explain.

Cheers,

Andrew.

Alois Rosario Answered 12 years ago

Hi Andrew,

You can do the topspin by brushing up the back of the ball.  Perhaps you can think of it like they do the kick serve in Tennis.  I think one of the keys is getting down lower so that you can approach the ball from below.

Let me know if this helps.