Forehand Topspin Drills – Developing Correct Tennis Topspin Technique

The following forehand topspin drills will help you increase the amount of topspin you’re able to use on your forehand. Please keep in mind that topspin alone is not the answer to controlling tennis strokes well.

The key to ball control is a strong base of tennis fundamentals starting with good balance, good posture (not leaning backwards), body rotation into the ball, good use of the non-dominant arm, a relaxed forward swing and the appropriate wrist lag.

While you’re working through the various forehand topspin drills mentioned below, make sure to check if the forehand fundamentals are in place, especially if you happen to lose control of the ball often.

Why Do We Need More Topspin?

Before we jump into the forehand topspin drills, let’s just point out the key situations where you would apply extra topspin.

While the pros use massive amounts of topspin on most shots, recreational level and junior level players can’t do that.

That’s because it’s really difficult to hit the sweet spot of the racket when you’re accelerating the racket head very fast upwards while the ball has a more horizontal flight path.

So we can only hit the ball well with a lot of topspin when the ball flies slow – in other words, when it’s a defensive shot from our opponent.

In most cases, you’ll apply more topspin when you’re attacking a short ball, approaching the net or hitting a short cross court shot.

In most other baseline rallies, don’t focus on maximum topspin but more on hitting the ball clean. In these cases, there will be enough topspin already to make your shots consistent.

Forehand Topspin Drills – From Technique To Game Based Practice

In order to apply more topspin to the ball, we need to accelerate the racket head faster. To do that, we need a multi-segmented forehand.

That means we can’t really hit the whole forehand with a straight arm. Instead, we need at least one more segment to engage (the hand through wrist joint) or, even better, two segments (the forearm through elbow joint and the hand through wrist joint).

In the first few forehand topspin drills, we’ll focus more on the technique and how to achieve the multi-segmented forehand. In the next set of drills, we’ll focus on a game-based approach where you’ll practice various situations that will encourage the use of topspin.

Drill #1 – Learning to accelerate the forearm and wrist

Stand at the service box corner on the sideline, drop the ball from your hand and hit it with a topspin cross court forehand while the ball is still in the air.

In other words, hit a drive volley and aim for the opposite service box corner on the other side.

Try to make contact with the ball as it is falling and around the height of the net or even lower. Your goal is to feel that you need to “dig the ball out” and hit it with a nice arc and, of course, topspin.

Focus on technique by “breaking the elbow” and using your forearm and wrist to accelerate. Finish the forehand with a short follow-through with the racket head near your shoulder.

Drill #2 – Mini tennis cross court – topspin vs slice

The next progression is to try to apply the new forehand topspin technique in a live ball exchange.

With a partner, play mini tennis cross court. While you attempt to play the same type of forehand as in the previous drill, your partner tries to return back nice and slow slice balls.

Slow slice balls are much easier to spin (than receiving a topspin ball), so we start in easier conditions first and then we progress to higher difficulty.

If you can spin the ball well off a slow slice ball, your partner/coach can then play the ball back flat and eventually even with topspin to increase the difficulty.

Drill #3 – Mini tennis cross court – stop (slice) & spin

This drill is very similar to the previous one except that now you need to stop the ball first with a slice forehand, let the ball bounce, adjust your position and then hit the topspin forehand.

Both partners can now play the same way, or your coach can return the ball flat or with topspin.

It’s very important to adjust your position if your slice forehand doesn’t place the ball in your ideal contact zone.

You’ll have enough time to do a few small steps to correct your position and hit a topspin forehand, so use that opportunity to also work on your footwork skills.

Drill #4 – Drive volley topspin (short cross court)

The following drill is likely the most commonly used drill in junior tennis to improve the topspin ability of forehands and backhands, as well as to increase the acceleration ability of the player’s arm/forearm/wrist.

The player stands about a meter and a half (5 to 6 feet) behind the service line, and the coach stands near the net with a basket of balls.

The coach throws the ball to the player with an underhand throw, and the player hits a drive volley aiming short cross at around the service line area.

The coach throws the ball so that, when the player hits it, that ball is already on the way down.

The player should make contact with the ball at around net height or even lower to force the player to accelerate upwards in order to hit the ball with a lot of topspin, creating an arc above the net.

Players should attempt to accelerate at maximum speed if they can hit the sweet spot often. If they mishit a lot, then they need to slow down to a speed at which they are hitting the ball clean.

Typically, the player can hit around 15–20 balls in a row for 3–4 sets.

In a typical junior training week, players will do this drill 2–3 times per week. Over the long term, they may do this drill or some variation of it for 4–5 years.

Quick Forehand Grip Tip

Before we move on to the second set of forehand topspin drills, I want to share a tip about the forehand grip that can help you apply topspin easier.

It’s important to have the index finger slightly away from the middle finger on the handle so that you feel that the base and part of the index finger are “under” the handle when looking from behind.

If you can feel the index finger under the handle, then it will act as a leverage that you can use to drive the racket head up better as you attempt to spin the ball.

If the finger is not under the handle – meaning the fingers are too close together and the hand is too perpendicular to the handle – then you will have to engage more of the wrist and find it difficult to apply topspin easily.

That then leads to poor consistency and accuracy of the forehands.

Drill #5 – Topspin vs slice on midi tennis

With this and the following topspin drills, we’re using the so-called game-based approach to develop more topspin.

A game-based approach to learning tennis techniques means that we don’t teach the technique explicitly (meaning with words or devices). Instead, we teach implicitly through situations that encourage the use of the technique we want to teach.

So learning is happening much more on the subconscious level than the conscious level.

To encourage the use of topspin, we can make the court shorter with different limitations so that the player realizes that they cannot complete the task well with long and flat shots.

In the first drill in this series, we make the court shorter by drawing a line at the ¾ distance from the net, which we call midi tennis.

The coach/partner can start playing with slow slice shots again in order to make it easier for the player to hit topspin.

The goal is, of course, to hit topspin shots and make them land before the midi line.

This can be played as cooperative rallies or even keeping score.

The coach can increase the difficulty by playing back flat shots and eventually topspin shots.

Drill #6 – Topspin vs slice (quarter court vs full court)

In this drill, the coach can play slice only. His shots need to land in the player’s forehand side service box.

The player who is working on their forehand topspin can play the ball anywhere, and their goal is to win the point.

This game does not have an equal setup, as the player is in a much better situation than the coach. It’s best not to put two players in a training session into this drill but rather a coach with the player.

The mental purpose of this drill is to build the player’s confidence since they will be in control all the time and will be mostly winning points.

The skill they are working on is a clean and accurate topspin forehand, which they need to control and make land inside the court.

Since the distance to the baseline is shorter playing from around the service line than from the opposing baseline, the player needs to apply more topspin and hit the ball accurately.

All of this requires a lot of practice, and this drill is designed to give the player the opportunity to practice attacking topspin forehands and develop very high consistency from such advantageous situations.

Drill #7 – Clean up the topspin

Player will often develop and hit topspin forehands that are not clean. While players are able to make the ball spin, the ball is not spinning on a horizontal axis but more on a sideways axis.

Players also often mishit the ball, missing the sweet spot of the racket. As a result, the forehand is not hit cleanly, leading to short balls or loss of ball control.

One way to help the players clean up their topspin forehands (this works for backhands, too) is to have them hit drive volleys from the baseline.

The coach stands in the middle of the service box and throws the ball underhanded to the player, who is just behind the baseline.

The player needs to hit a drive volley (so a topspin forehand volley) and aim inside out, deep over the service line on the other side.

The goal is not to hit with maximum acceleration into topspin but to hit the ball cleanly.

Players who don’t have good forehand topspin technique will struggle with this drill, as it will show them very clearly that they are not hitting the ball cleanly.

Their shots will often end up in the net or land short.

Through regular practice of this drill, they will gradually clean up their forehand or backhand topspin technique and hit the ball more cleanly, which means they will need less effort to hit the ball with more power and control.

Summary

We can work on the forehand and backhand topspin in two general ways:

• through a conscious approach, where we determine exactly how the body parts (arm, forearm, wrist) and the racket need to move in space, and
• through a subconscious approach, where we use game-based drills that encourage the use of topspin in order to achieve a certain task.

Players should work on their strokes in both ways, but the more advanced they are, the more they should focus on game-based drills and less on conscious movements of their body.

All these drills can be used on the backhand side, too. Just keep in mind that when hitting a two-handed backhand, the player can “break the elbow” to achieve more acceleration into topspin.

In contrast, the one-handed backhand technique does not allow that, so the player must keep their arm completely extended throughout the forward swing and follow-through.