How do you put sidespin on a topspin groundstroke?

[AlphaCDjkr]

I don't get how people do this! I have two friends who are really consistent at this, they do a topspin forehand but they roll their arms over the ball or something, and the ball behaves like a twist serve (shot, thing, w/e)

In my point of view (We're all righty's) Assuming their ball goes toward me, it then starts curving off to my right. Upon bounce, it starts coming toward me again. If I try hitting the ball anywhere near on the rise, I always mishit the ball.

Their spin isn't exceptionally strong or anything. It's just enough to mess me up. Ironically I have some really blind friends, who, when faced with this shot, do not realize that the ball is behaving erratically and the moment they hit the ball off to the middle of nowhere due to the different trajectory, they blindly look around, smile like idiots, and laugh, "How did I miss that? I must have mishit the ball." I try telling them to pay more attention to the spin of the ball and stuff but they just say that I'm being too technical. Oh well. :???:

ANYWAY. I can occasionally do this shot, but I don't do it like they do. What are some key ways to put sidespin on the ball?

[KerryJ]

Mishitting the ball is a great way to put side spin on a top spin stroke

[AlphaCDjkr]

Mishitting the ball is a great way to put side spin on a top spin stroke

It would be nice to have applicable methods.

Sidenote: My friend is actually really good at intentionally framing the ball at net. He swings so hard, chips it, it acts like a intense sidespin drop shot. And he does this on purpose. Lol.

[SystemicAnomaly]

From a bird's' eye view, you are probably hitting your topspin FH strokes at the 6 o'clock position on the ball (directly on the back of the ball). Trying contact the ball for FHs a bit on the "outside" -- at a bit past 5 o'clock or more like a 5:30 position on the ball. It is like you are trying to bring your racket around (the outside of) the ball. You can do the same thing for a topspin BH -- you would be hitting the ball at a 7 o'clock or 6:30 position.

You might already be hitting slightly to the "outside" for many of your x-court shots. Try to do the same thing for your straight-ahead shots. If you are hitting a ball down the line, it should help you to beep the ball from going wide -- since the ball is curving slightly inward to the court.

If you put a generous amount of upward brush on the ball (along with the sidespin action), you can often get the ball to kick, much as it would on a high kick serve. Note that when players hit a round-around FH shot, an inside-out FH, they are often hitting on the "inside" of the ball rather than the "outside".

.

[Nellie]

If you hit the ball suffiiciently far enough in front, it will break sideways because the natural swing path is first forward and then across the body. It is easier to bend the forehand when you hit toward your backhand side, because this causes the furthest forward contact point.

[BullDogTennis]

you hit it alittle sideways, i do it alot, gives something different for an opponent to see.

[heycal]

Sidespin? Heck, I'm still trying to figure out how to put topspin on a topspin groundstroke...

[phucng_10]

Sidespin? Heck, I'm still trying to figure out how to put topspin on a topspin groundstroke...

Yeah, it's hard. My topspin isn't that noticeable... sometimes I think I'm just hitting a flat forehand.

[AlphaCDjkr]

Lol really? interesting.

Anyways yeah. I just came back from some practice with friends, it's just too awkward hitting outwards on the ball. It only works if I'm running, not standing in place. I think I'll just stick with my regular shots, they're good enough for me.

[SystemicAnomaly]

^ I wouldn't give up on learning to hit on the "outside" of the ball so easily. This ability is what separates a high intermediate player from a low intermediate. Try it first with a dropped ball or an easy feed. See if you can do it consistently on x-court shots and then try to master it on straight shots.

[tennisdad65]

I have never noticed any of the top players using sidespin on their regular topspin groundstrokes. anyone have any video links showing the same?

ps.. the only time I have seen sidespin+topspin is nadal's on the run forehand passing shot down the line. and that too, it seems like the ball has to be relatively low to do this.

[BullDogTennis]

most pros use it when there doing passing shots, especially during running ones. ever notice when they do the little shot spot deal and the ball litterally bends out of bounds, and still comes in bounds, thats because some sidespin. its just instead of hitting 6 to 12 you hit either 7 to 1 or 5 to 11

[SystemicAnomaly]

I have never noticed any of the top players using sidespin on their regular topspin groundstrokes. anyone have any video links showing the same?

ps.. the only time I have seen sidespin+topspin is nadal's on the run forehand passing shot down the line. and that too, it seems like the ball has to be relatively low to do this.

It is probably used much more than you realize. Often, the effect of hitting on the "outside" of the ball is subtle. You may have only noticed it when the effect was more pronounced.

[teppeiahn1]

Reverse forhands give you sidespin but seriusly, I think its just better to hit the ball with topspin to the baseline. When your opponent hits the sidespin, whatch the ball and i shouldn't be realy hard.

[teppeiahn1]

^^^ sorry about the grammer

[Lejanius]

A buddy of mine hits like this, he doesn't do it on purpose it is his natural stroke, however he achieves this by pulling his arm across and up as he hits if that makes sense. He has tried to fix it but just can't so he gave up and just hits like that.

If I was trying to do it on purpose I would get a bit closer to the ball than I normally would so when I hit I was forced to pull my arm inwards as I hit.

However I think unless it is natural I don't think I would do this on purpose but that is just me

[mawashi]

Putting a side spin on the ball is rather natural for me if I'm doing an inside out forehand.

The ball will swerve towards the right then swing back to the left and upon bouncing will kick to the left. This is from my perspective of being a right hander.

The same will apply when I hit shots early and in front of me, I swing through naturally but cus I'm reaching out a bit more for such shots I tend to hit it with more topspin and cus my body is facing more to the left, it generates a topspin with left english.

It's all about timing, face of racquet upon contact and the follow through.

mawashi

[Headshotterer]

^^^ sorry about the grammer

grammer is spelt grammar

[AlphaCDjkr]

^ I wouldn't give up on learning to hit on the "outside" of the ball so easily. This ability is what separates a high intermediate player from a low intermediate. Try it first with a dropped ball or an easy feed. See if you can do it consistently on x-court shots and then try to master it on straight shots.

Oh Oh, I have PROGRESS! (lol). Anyway, I came back from tennis today after trying a little harder. I agree that there is natural sidespin on inside-out shots, but I'm not going to hit an inside-out shot every time, am I?

Please correct me if I'm doing this wrong. It's still a bit flubby, but so far its ok for me. What I'm doing right now is, instead of hitting the ball straight, I kind of start the backswing a little behind my back instead at my side. When I swing, I swing a bit more.. Across? Across the ball, rather than into it. Kind of like a buggy whip shot? The results is that I have low power for now, and my control is way off. Also, if I do anything wrong, the ball turns into a sidespin moonball (Predictable, so useless.)

On the occasions I did it right, it was purely unintentional. For example, I tried doing a down the alley shot, and I got bored and attempted to put sidespin on it. Rather than landing in the alley, it gently moved toward the court again (where it got put away by the opposing player who just let it go toward him. Boo.)

Judging from my descriptions, am I doing this right? Please correct me if I'm doing it wrong, before I learn some twisted useless shot.

[SystemicAnomaly]

Oh Oh, I have PROGRESS! (lol). Anyway, I came back from tennis today after trying a little harder. I agree that there is natural sidespin on inside-out shots, but I'm not going to hit an inside-out shot every time, am I?

...

Correct, you are not going to hit inside-out shots that often with your FH or topspin BH. It is more of a specialty shot for certain situations. The spin we were talking about is the opposite spin -- hitting on the outside of the ball rather than the inside.

One common use of hitting around the outside of the ball is for hitting those short, extreme angled x-court shots. I've seen Fed do it quite a bit when he hit some of those impossible well-placed angles. I use this quite a bit when I'm playing doubs since I can angle it even more into the alleys.

You also see it on those passing shots that BullDog was talking about (above). I use it on most of my down-the-line shots. It is particularly useful when taking a x-court shot from your opponent and directing it DTL. Quite often when doing this, the ball ends up going a bit wide. However if you hit around the outside of the ball, it becomes easier to "bend" it back in the court.

You see this situation quite often when returning serves (since the ball is coming from a x-court direction). I will usually try to run around the ball to play it as an inside shot if I want to hit it DTL. however, if I do not run around the serve going out wide, I hit the ball on the outside if I want to go DTL.

I also came across an article (http://www.tennis.com/yourgame/instructionarticles/backhand/backhand.aspx?id=426) in Tennis (http://www.tennis.com/yourgame/instructionarticles/backhand/backhand.aspx?id=426) mag that talks about hitting on the outside of the ball for a BH slice. Here is a pic from that article:

http://www.tennis.com/uploadedImages/Your_Game/Instruction_Articles/Backhand/2006_04_18_effective_slice_2.jpg


(P.S. I'll have to read your previous post again later to see if I can follow it).

[skiracer55]

^ I wouldn't give up on learning to hit on the "outside" of the ball so easily. This ability is what separates a high intermediate player from a low intermediate. Try it first with a dropped ball or an easy feed. See if you can do it consistently on x-court shots and then try to master it on straight shots.

...but you have to be careful with that concept, IMHO. My former coach, Sam Winterbotham, former Head Men's coach at CU Boulder, and now Head Men's coach with the Tennessee Vols used to have me and his players do the exact opposite...hit topspin but also feel yourself hitting the ball from the inside out. One of the reasons he had me, especially, and his #2 player do it is that we both had a habit of hitting topspin from the outside in, and...and again, I'm just saying this was in our case, but it's another data point...when it worked, it was fine, but when it didn't, we'd tend to pull up crosswise and over the ball without hitting through it, and we'd smother the shot into the net.

What we're getting into here is a discussion about variety, and its place in tennis, in two dimensions:

(1) First, there are some pretty good general principles in stroke production, but in fact there is a wide range of individual ways that each player, for example, puts topspin on a ground stroke. Nadal and Federer can both hit with topspin...but it's different topspin, and they get there in different ways...although they both exemplify the fundamentals of good footwork, racket preparation, consistent contact point and swing pattern, and so forth.

There are even widely divergent philosophies, if you will, of what tennis strokes are supposed to be. I hit with another guy who is also a Men's 50/Men's Open player (we're both 60) who coached for Peter Burwash some time ago. My buddy, like Peter, like me, really believes in compact strokes, a la Agassi, especially in the preparation...whereas (and this is his comment, not mine), lots of teaching pros advocate long, flowing backswings and follow throughs. We just talked about Agassi's short backswing. Mario Ancic, on the other hand, has an incredibly round and full backswing on the forehand...but he prepares consistently and early, so it works for him.

(2) The variety thing in terms of the variations you can put on a given shot. I'm 5' 7", but I always figured I could be a winner, too...Chuck McKinley and Rod Laver were little guys, too, but they both won Wimbledon. Laver, of course, had those incredible topspin groundstrokes...but he had a lot of other stuff, too. He could serve and volley, he had a great slice backhand...and he had the variety in his game to be able to win in Paris. So variety became the spice of life, and tennis, at a very early age for me.

So if you're a little guy (or even "not one of those 6' 6" behemoths who can serve 130 mph the first time they pick up a racket...") I say you've got to have variety in your game if you aspire to 5.0 or better. My hitting partner and I share the same coach, who is back in Argentina for the winter. Before he left this year, he went through all the stuff we worked on this summer, and one key item he stressed was...you guessed it...being more than a one-trick pony. I know that the standard image of the men's game at the ATP level is "Big serve, big forehand, that is all you need to know". Works fine, maybe, until you get to the Wimbledon final, and then the guys who can do everything take over. And practically speaking, how many of us are ever going to have a 130 mph serve and a cannon for a forehand? Doesn't mean you shouldn't head in that direction, but realistically, you've got to have some other stuff to back it up.

So, yeah, variety is great, and a variety of spins is a Good Thing, obviously. I would also note that there probably isn't such a thing as a "pure" topspin groundstroke, just as there probably isn't such an animal as a "pure" kick serve, or flat serve. Every time I hit a slice serve, it probably has a little component of topspin in it, and every time I go for a "flat" serve, it has some kind of spin on it, however minimal, because at my size, I obviously ain't no Ivo Karlovic, who probably can hit a pure flat serve.

So I see where SystemicAnomaly is heading...and I agree...because as I said above, there are different paths to the same goal. But to start with, I'd keep the goal fairly simple, as somebody else mentioned, as in "develop a reliable topspin forehand" without explicitly trying to come up with a combination topspin/sidespin shot for the opening bet. Get a good basic topspin shot, and then go from there. To give you an example, if somebody bangs a hard groundy at my left hip (I'm a righty), and I don't have time to move, I can hit an inside out slice backhand that skids low and away from my opponent...and a lot of times it goes in, because I've had to use it, as needed, as a Hail Mary shot over 50 years of time on court. But it's not something I'd depend on, or hit on purpose. If I hit one of these one hit wonders, I'll always think "Whew...dodged another bullet. Next time, move your damned feet so you can hit a clean slice..."

[AlphaCDjkr]

Correct, you are not going to hit inside-out shots that often with your FH or topspin BH. It is more of a specialty shot for certain situations. The spin we were talking about is the opposite spin -- hitting on the outside of the ball rather than the inside.

...

I also came across an article (http://www.tennis.com/yourgame/instructionarticles/backhand/backhand.aspx?id=426) in Tennis (http://www.tennis.com/yourgame/instructionarticles/backhand/backhand.aspx?id=426) mag that talks about hitting on the outside of the ball for a BH slice. Here is a pic from that article:

http://www.tennis.com/uploadedImages/Your_Game/Instruction_Articles/Backhand/2006_04_18_effective_slice_2.jpg


(P.S. I'll have to read your previous post again later to see if I can follow it).

Haha I see. I was practicing again today at school; I'm getting the 'feel' for hitting some sidespin, though it's still quirky. I certainly know examples of pros using it for extreme shots, I've noticed the spin... and it must feel great to have that work for you.. I'll keep working on it.

Oh, and about that picture with the BH slice. Haha I'm not trying brag or anything but I must say that I believe I'm rather consistent at using sidespin slice. It's seriously one of my favorite shots. I sometimes intentionally hit on the inside of the ball and put sidespin, as a result, instead of a clean steady sidespin slice, I get an awkward sidespin slice lob. Obviously these shots are pretty useless when it comes to even intermediate/pro players, but my friends are clueless when it comes to reading slices, so I use it to mess with them. I don't use sidespin often when I play competitively. I however, do use a sidespin drop shot, it's pretty useful.

[Storm_Kyori]

I hit the "NO" (from the inside) when I'm playing some dubs especially when I'm on the Deuce side. It brings my oponent out wide giving me a shot down the middle especially if his partner isn't looking. Anyway back to the side spin. I've had some success when I actually hit the ball @ 4 o clock, but at bit more on the outside. Like in a clock hitting the frame as apposed to brushing it. Topspin comes pretty natural to me so that's not a problem, I could use more of it, but I'm fine with what my FH has.