Topspin Direction

Table Tennis Strokes and Technique

Last updated 11 years ago

Aasim Showkat

Aasim Showkat Asked 11 years ago

Hi Alois

How can I make the topspin stroke to into a desired direction to put an opponent in trouble. whenever I try to do so the ball always goes off the table. My topspin stroke becomes easy to block as it is always in opponent's desired direction. Can you tell me so.


Alois Rosario

Alois Rosario Answered 11 years ago

Hi Aasim,

To change the direction of your topspin you can either change your wrist or your body position.

If you don't have much time or you want to add some deception to the stroke, you can just change the position of your wrist.  Just by turning it back slightly you can get the ball to go down the line.  It doesn't need much of a change in the angle of your wrist to get quite a big change in the direction that you hit the ball.

The second way is to change the timing of your hit.  By hitting the ball a bit earlier you will get the ball to go cross court. If you hit the ball later then the ball will go down the line.

The other way is to change your body position.  By altering your feet position you can change the direction the ball goes.

The really important thing with all of these options is make sure your arm action remains the same.  A lot of players try to change their stroke too much and that leads to errors.

Let me know if this helps you with your strokes.


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Aasim Showkat

Aasim Showkat Posted 11 years ago

Thanks for the lovely answer but there is something else, when I change the angle of my racket it imparts sidespin on the ball and thus it curves. Second thing is that I didn't understand the second answer.


Aasim Showkat

Aasim Showkat Posted 11 years ago

Changing the position of feet works. Thanks


Alois Rosario

Alois Rosario from PingSkills Posted 11 years ago

If the ball is getting sidespin, think about straightening the swing so that you are coming at the ball from directly behind it.


mat huang

mat huang Posted 11 years ago

I think that the "top"of your bat is facing too forward. If you dont wont sidespin, the top of the bat needs to be parellel to the table's base or end line.

I had heaps of problems with it to



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