Topspin forehand issue

[Mikeoz]

So I’ve been learning the topspin forehand with a ball machine and had good success getting that telltale dipping/arcing ball on most of my shots.

When I aim to put alot of topspin on the ball to give an even greater height over the net, I purposefully drop the racket well below the height of the ball and swing low to high more than I would normally do for my regular topspin forehand.

I would expect the ball to clear the net by a good height and probably land a bit short because of the excessive low to high swing path.

However, what actually happens is, the ball lands short but only just clears the net . I certainly feel like I brush up more than through the ball during this swing and it looks like there is alot of topspin on it, but I can't understand why there is so little height over the net!

From this description does anyone have any ideas what the problem could be?

Thanks

Mike

 

[Keendog]

You're not supposed to brush the ball at all. I know coaches say this but it is wrong, or at best a progression not the final state. Just swing forward through the ball, if you start below the ball it will impart topspin regardless. You are decelerating by trying to "brush" too much.

 

[Wise one]

Topspin? Topspin? We don't need no stinkin' topspin!

 

[VacationTennis]

You're probably not getting any racket head speed behind it and probably "guiding" it over. Loosen the stroke up and try to get some real height over the net, it's ok if some go long, don't worry. You'll learn how to bring it back in and control the height and depth over time.

 

[Chas Tennis]

The ball projection angle (up or down angle) of a forehand has
1) racket path, say, of the center of the strings
2) the angle of the racket face just before impact, I've heard estimates of around 5-10 degrees, there is research and high speed videos for the range of impact angles.
3) the racket head speed.
4) other variables

What should those values be? There have been some measurements of some of them.

But we can look at high level forehands and estimate what they are doing with their high level techniques. If we want to be serious we can do side-by-side videos of our unknown forehand technique & its performance vs a high level technique and its performance.

Tennisspeed has a series on the forehand that has some very informative illustrations.
This is the side view that shows ball projection angle and shows the 4 things above.

Tennisspeed picture highlighting how closed the racket face is before, during and after impact. When the racket is impacted off the center line, the face rotates rapidly (red lines). I don't know the effect of the off center hits, could you be hitting low on your racket face?

One complication is that there are currently several high level forehand techniques, Sock, Federer, Djokovic, etc.