This. This is what EVERYONE should stick with for really becoming a better tennis player. Forget all the complicated things you find everywhere. It's been more than 10 years since i've started playing tennis, and i can guarantee that coach Tomas is THE BEST here. When i keep in mind his teachings, is when i improve the most and i play a really better tennis. ❤ Thanks for everything coach, i dream a day when i could finally come to take lessons from you❤ Cheers from Italy
I've been guilty of several of these points made in this video. It took me years to finally develop consistent topspin. Tomaz has helped me tremendously. I still have to catch myself now and then reverting back to some of my old ways. When playing against better players I tend to be late as Tomaz points out. Always a work in progress but enjoy it so much. Thanks again for the great video!
@@meditationman415 You need to be prepared WAY before the ball bounce because on the ball bounce you're loading your legs: ru-vid.com_4YeMyHQcuc. The only exception are very slow defensive incoming balls which will bounce off very slow and "hang in the air" and that's when you can delay the preparation.
I've been a tennis coach for a long time. Now I'm 69 and I find myself naturally hitting less topspin, probably because it requires more physical energy. Topspin allows a player to hit hard and still keep it in the court. As I age I have less power so gravity can bring the ball safely into the court. I use topspin more as a correction for a shot I hit too long or for more control but not necessarily all the time. Probably when I am 85 or 90 I will be using backspin instead of flat and topspin. I see this all the time with older players at my club. In the end, topspin, flat or backspin, the aim is to win the point. Jimmy Connors won 109 tour titles with a flat strokes. While that may no longer work in today's pro game I think it is perfectly fine for club players. (Vic Braden probably would disagree.) But Tomasz's points on why and how to hit more topspin are all valid here.
The 'mental - stiff arm' members' video from two weeks ago and this video, it's like you're reading my mind as to what I've been struggling with trying to solve for a while now. Much thanks!
Great video! I always love your content. I will definitely use my ball machine to practice Topspin. I tend to not drop my racket head below the ball when I play matches and my balls go flying long.
Hi Tomaz, Superb video!! I have been working on top spin forever and I’m still not there. I see now that my problem is where I swing low to high but my racket face is open so I get very little top spin. I also don’t visualize it. I think with this remarkable video I could just get it! Finally🥳
When you showed the late shot your stance was much more closed than the correctly-timed shot. Does that imply it's easier to learn topspin if you learn/practice the open stance forehand?
Fluidity is purhaps the most difficult points to teach students to apply to their stroke because most of us are sqeezing the life out of the grip/handle when attempting to spin the ball.
You're welcome! I am now using Eastern grip because I don't play points anymore for many years and I have to hit flatter shots to my students as not to trouble them with topspin balls bouncing in their face. ;) I used to have a Semi-Western grip when I played in my youth but as I started to teach more and more, the grip just shifted by itself to a more Eastern because it's easier to hit a flatter ball with it. I can still hit heavy topspin if I need to...
Yes, smaller the grip size, the more free will the wrist feel and move but that also means less racket head stability at contact. So eventually it comes down to personal preference ...
Can please help me? Cos my swing is ok but at contact point my rqcket face is always a little open and ball goes long often, have tried both eastern and semi western forehand grip but still the same
You cannot consciously control the angle of the racket face while every single ball that you hit in your life is hit at a slightly different height, bounces at a different distance to you, comes at you at a different speed and angle. Grips have nothing to do with ball control or how high the ball goes since there are players with eastern, semi-western and western grips that have good ball control. You are likely so focused on technique and grips that you forgot to AIM! Your body doesn't know how to play tennis, it's just a "bio-machine" that moves. YOU need to AIM every single ball. You need to know for every single ball how high above the net you want to play it and then your body will try to adapt and accomplish that task. Obviously it takes trial and error but you have to aim every shot: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sJTkThAKMMQ.html
@@feeltennis spot on! I also feel like I'm tooo focused on my grip and swing path for every single ball and often aiming come last. Thank you for your advice 🙏 Will definitely try it at next session.
Thank you so much for your analysis of tennis and your wonderful videos. I would like to watch video in very slow motion: could you give me an advice to get the proper software for PC and software (the ones you use, maybe ?) Thanks
Thanks for the feedback! Yes, I plan to make a little "buyers guide" for content creators like myself and tennis enthusiasts that want to record themselves. So in short - I use Panasonic S5 camera (google it, it's nicely discounted now, can record 4K with 60 fps and 1080p with 120fps) and I also use an iPad Pro 12.9 with M1 chip which can also record 4K with 60 fps and even 1080p with 240 fps (frames per second). For hardware and software I switched to Apple products this year because their hardware is optimised for video and they are dead silent even if they have a fan. I use Mac Mini Pro with M2 chip for video editing which eats any 4K video for breakfast without breaking a sweat or even turning the fans on. Tons of good video editing programs, I suggest Capcut if you're starting out since it's free of charge and easy to use and also optimised for Apple M chips.
Great analysis of the psychological aspects of trying to hit topspin! One question though, how much of the racquet face direction and bend of the elbow impact the ability to impart topspin? I am a bit confused on what to fix in my game mechanical or psychological to get consistent topspin.
I can hit topspin with an open racket face. ;) I will record that video one day. 95% of the pros have a bent elbow when hitting forehand topspin shots, only very few hit with a straight arm, like Federer, Nadal, Verdasco and a few more. So bent or not bent doesn't matter, racket face doesn't matter much, there is just a few degrees margin you can have to hit the ball in the court. What matters is the swing path which means you need to swing up on the ball. Most of that work is done with the arm and some with the wrist. Don't think too much, visualize topspin and practice it with drills: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xjqhxgyGDTM.html
@@feeltennis thanks for replying! That gives me the confidence that I don't need to worry about my racket mechanics and focus only on the swing. If I can ask a follow-up, how hard or loose to keep the wrist while hitting a topspin shot? In your videos, I got the sense that the wrist should be loose but my coach says because the wrist is loose I am slapping at the ball. And that I need to let the wrist loose after making contact with the ball. Could you clarify?
How loose is the wrist must depend on the skill level. Your goal is always good ball control, meaning that you can consistently hit many balls well, let's say around 8-10 in row, The more the better. The lower the skill level, the more the player needs to control the racket to control the racket face therefore the more firm the wrist. If you make yourself hit with a loose wrist because a RU-vidr says so and you keep missing shots, then that's bad for your tennis and your confidence. So notice the relation between consistency and loose wrist. If you're not consistent, control the wrist more - but along the way experiment with gradually (by 5-10%) releasing the tension (also grip: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6vgsYelPy2Y.html) and see if you can still maintain ball control. If you are slapping the ball too much, then you may not control the wrist after the contact, you are likely just releasing it as if you hit the ball with the baseball bat. But in tennis we need to control the follow-through. So you could be "firing" the stroke, check this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-B6171QOxOwI.html. And you can try this approach to control your wrist in the follow-through: ru-vid.comHnZfML2Davk
@@feeltennis thanks for the excellent advice. Easy to get misguided by videos saying keep wrist loose whereas for my skill level, it doesn't work well. Another takeaway for me from the linked videos is though the follow through is happening after the ball leaves the racket, it directly influences how the racket was while hitting the ball. Thinking in reverse. That was insightful!
Extend longer through contact, visualise not changing racket angle through contact, visualise a lane towards the target like I showed in the How to Aim video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sJTkThAKMMQ.html
Last few weeks my obsession has been forehand topspin, why am i not getting it. Today I had a breakthrough and its one of Tomaz's 7 points. I need to do the topspin. Every shot the priority was to have topspin, and it worked, and i realised that unless i intentionally do it, it doesn't happen.
Great to hear! For a while you'll need to think about and eventually it will automate or you will just visualize a different trajectory for a specific shot and spin will then happen without much thinking.
That will be great!! Focusing so intently on the topspin I noticed that I was hitting through the ball on it's vertical axis and my guess is I would normally and carelessly hit across the ball@@feeltennis
One confusion I have is on the whip action which I get emphasized to do after contact to get topspin. Whenever I whip, the ball barely goes over the net - maybe too much of wrist. Could it because I am not rotating the core enough to generate power while whipping/brushing?
You are probably going up too steeply up on the ball so there is not enough forward force. And yes, you could not be driving enough forward with your body rotation. Check out this video on hitting more through: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9s1-pW7Qo_o.html and also this one that may help: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0_Ya3I5sn40.html
I think generating topspin is an iterative process, because your mind doesn't intuitively believe that it works. For me the biggest trick to implementing the important elements required - looseness, racket head speed, etc. - is having the confidence that the shot will go in. But that confidence shouldn't be blind or because you read it somewhere. You need to convince your mind iteratively by results, pushing your technique slightly above your confidence zone, until your mind sees the ball going in and your confidence catches up, then repeat the process.
Doesn’t making contact with the ball farther in front of you run the risk of opening up the racket face? Or do you use the wrist to keep the racket face slightly closed to compensate for that?
Well, if it's too far in front then yes, your hand may open the racket face too much. Tennis is a very precise sport, you need to be within a few inches in space and a few hundredths of a second to play well. But wherever you hit, your hand will always try to adjust depending on how you aim. If you don't focus well on aiming, then the hand doesn't know what to do. More on aiming here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sJTkThAKMMQ.html
@RNobleman It is not necessary to know that because you cannot consciously control such small angle of the racket face. If you consciously try to "close the racket face", you'll hit in the net. So all you can do is visualize topspin and AIM into a window above the net towards the target.
Yes it does, you get a nice downward acceleration from which it's easy to swing upwards, in fact it swings upwards on its own - just like a real swing. (the one for kids in the playground)
Just coincidence because I am emphasising linear path of the racket through the ball in the first case and neutral stance is much more comfortable for that type of shot. And open stance is much more comfortable for applying heavy topspin. But one can do both flat and topspin from any stance.
I was also wondering about this but it's still not so clear to me why neutral or closed stance feels "less comfortable" for this type of shot, are any adjustments required? Thank you for the videos as always by the way
@lyderhorn If you don't feel any difference then don't worry about it, just play tennis. When you become more skilled over time, you will start to feel the nuances of the stances and types of strokes you hit.
