Topspin Forehand vs Flat Forehand in Tennis - Technique & Execution of Tennis Forehand Lesson.

Hey everyone Simon and Alex here with Top Tennis Training and in this video we're going to cover the flat forehand versus the topspin forehand in tennis. We're going to look at when to use each one and how to execute it. Now before we get any deeper into the lesson if you're serious about improving all areas of your forehand then make sure you click on the link below this video and download our free forehand guide right away. That's five steps to hitting the perfect forehand in tennis. Now stay tuned to the video because later on we're going to show you a very simple drill that will help you get more spin but also produce more power when you want to flatten out your forehand. Now it's important to be able to hit with topspin on your forehand but also to flatten out those higher balls. The spin will allow you to become more consistent because you'll be able to dip balls into the court even when hitting at full speed. You'll be able to create more angles. Now with the flat forehand we can generate more power, we can take time away from the opponent and we can hit more winners. So now let's talk about how to generate more topspin on our forehand. Now when you want to produce more topspin on the forehand it's all about creating that low to high swing path during that strike zone. So anything that will help you to get that low to high swing and produce power during that phase will give you more topspin. So certain grips will allow you to do that a lot more easier than others. If you're holding a semi-western or a western grip you're able to brush up on the ball a lot more and have a contact which is closer to your body so you can afford to go up. If you're holding an eastern grip it then becomes a little bit more difficult to go up because you have to hit the contact more in front of you but also the wrist position doesn't quite allow you to rotate easily. You have to almost pull up on that shot and you're not able to release the hand quite as much as you would on a semi-western or the western. Now guys stop wasting time and subscribe to the channel make sure you press that subscribe button and that notification bell so you can get further videos from us when we release them. Now with a continental grip you're going to struggle to generate topspin simply because it's very difficult to brush up on that ball in the position that the wrist is in. That's why you have the old players use this grip and they can only hit the ball flat. It's useful on fast surfaces but for surfaces like clay and hard you're going to struggle generating that topspin simply because you're not going to be able to do it with your wrist. Now if you're using a grip that allows you to have that swing path the next step is to make sure that the racket head is dropping below that point of contact. So if i'm making contact with a ball here i want to make sure that my racket head is completely below that ball level so that at the point of contact i can brush that using that low to high swing which will help me to produce that topspin. You want the strings to grip onto the ball and you want that kind of rolling effect on the ball where the strings affect that ball and make it rotate forward and that's exactly what will create that spin that easy spin to make the ball dip on the other side. Now with that low to high swing it's very important that we have a good follow through and finish. Now this means you'll be using that windshield wiper motion so as you make contact the racket is dropped and then the tip of the racket ends up above the ball level in this position here so the tip of the racket is now pointing up to the sky and then you come over the top of that ball so you're coming from low up and over. Now the windshield wiper motion will allow you to produce that racket speed during that contact zone which is so important in producing heavy spin. Now notice Alex's elbow is away from his body and it's quite high it's around shoulder height when he finishes his forehand this will ensure that he's going from low to high and having that high finish. Now the racket will finish at different levels so sometimes you'll finish slightly higher sometimes slightly lower but the main thing is to have that elbow up because that will produce that low to high swing path which is vital. A great way to achieve that low to high racket path is also to use your legs so as you get down you're going to use your legs use the ground to then drive up and forward so notice how his turn his hips and his legs are now going up and forward that rotation through the ball and the drive up will allow you to also use your arm and the wrist but it will help you do so and it'll help you be more relaxed with the arm and the wrist rather than having to muscle it. So you're going to be generating the speed of racket and the speed of the racket head traveling through the ball by using your legs and the body. Using the legs is very important in generating topspin getting into that either open or semi-open stance will help you drive up and use the body momentum going up the force moving up through the shot and giving you that racket head path going upwards. The neutral stance you can still generate spin but this will come from your arm action and you won't quite be able to get quite as much. This is used more on the flat shot when you're trying to put your body weight through the contact and forward. Now another way to help you produce more spin is have the strings close to the ground so the palm is facing the court when you have that racket drop this will make that racket drop much easier and it will also produce that racket angle that you want so you're able to brush over the top of that ball much quicker and this is a trick that we see Federer doing when he wants more spin he drops the racket head and he has the strings the side he's going to hit the ball with facing the court. Now if you don't close those strings and you simply keep them like this so keep it to the side of your body it becomes actually quite difficult to drop your racket because you have to drop it through your wrist and that's where a lot of the common injuries with the wrist happen because players are not dropping with a racket face down they're dropping it this way where this can cause wrist issues so if you want to have a safe way of dropping your racket and getting below that ball make sure you're not doing it through your wrist make sure you're doing it from your arm and the racket face facing down so that the rotation only happens at contact rather than starting the rotation through your wrist before contact. So now let's cover the flat forehand and talk about the grip first now if you're someone that uses the western grip and this is very common with juniors who start with playing with yellow balls and having to deal with high balls they start in that western grip but then they struggle to generate power as they grow up simply because of the way that the racket face is facing is downwards in an uncomfortable position for the wrist so it's very difficult to swing through contact and extend through contact because the further away from the body you go the more downwards the racket faces so you're only limited to hitting balls that are close to you and then brushing up on that because that's the only way you can do it with that grip. Now the more semi western and eastern you go you can actually start to extend through contact and finish the correct way over your shoulder so when going for that flatter forehand it's important to have a more linear swing path so the racket is traveling through that ball if we imagine something like a long stick or even a french baguette Alex's racket now is traveling through that baguette before he then finishes over the shoulder so that long extension towards his target will help us produce more power and that flatter shot so with the topspin you're going upwards with a flat shot you're going forwards now with a flat you still rotate your wrist and you still have a relaxed wrist but it just happens after contact with the topspin it happens during contact and a lot earlier now the stance that you use on that flat forehand will be in general that neutral stance because this allows for more body momentum towards your target so Alex starts off with his bodyweight on the back leg his right leg as he starts going towards the ball it starts to shift forward and then he ends up traveling towards the direction he's hitting that shot with his body momentum carrying him that direction so it's important that we're using that neutral stance whenever possible now you can still produce a flat shot with the open stance but it won't have that same effect as if we're using that neutral stance because of that momentum going towards your target you can have a much longer racket path to your target if you transfer your body weight through it if you're doing that semi-open or the open you can go up a lot more but you're unable to extend quite as far in order to achieve that flat shot that you need. Generally players who hit topspin will have a higher net clearance so the trajectory of the ball will be a lot higher even if they're going for an angle they'll still go over the net and then dip a lot shorter so every time the ball is clearing the net by quite a margin. Players that generally hit with flat shots will have the trajectory a lot lower over the net the net clearance will be lower but this is also reflected by the power that they're achieving with the ball so if they're hitting the ball fast that they need a high net clearance to reach the baseline because the ball is traveling through there a lot quicker they are however unable to generate quite as much angle on that shot because the ball will not be dipping it doesn't have that spin to bring the ball down early so flat shots are generally being hit in a straight line low over the net and getting more power through the shot. So here I'm going to demonstrate some forehands where I'm going for that heavy topspin using the semi-western and the western grip and then later on I'll compare it to my normal grip which is the eastern and you'll see the difference in the spin rate. So first see semi-western so that was a semi-western now let's try it with the western grip so that was a western grip it's very hard to produce that power it's easy to produce a spin now let's compare it to my normal grip the eastern forehand grip now let's work on the different stances so to begin I'm going to use only the open stance and then I'll step forward and use that neutral stance and neutral slightly shorter I normally play with a semi-western grip but here I'm going to attempt to play with a western with a semi-western and the eastern grip so with the eastern grip I'm expecting to struggle with getting that ball to dip so it's going to feel like I'm hitting it too flat with a western grip it's going to feel like I'm over spinning the ball so I'm somewhere in between semi-western now with the eastern I really struggle to generate that topspin it feels wrong in my hand with a semi-western I just had to play my normal game with the western I had to allow the ball to come a lot closer to me so that I could rotate up so I was just generating the upper momentum and getting my hip turned a little bit earlier so that I can meet the ball with that grip with that western grip with a eastern grip I really struggle to bring that ball down it didn't feel very comfortable but if you're if it's a grip that you're used to playing then perhaps you're going to struggle doing the western because you're used to getting a flat hit rather than the topspin now hitting a flat or a topspin shot also depends on where the ball is on the court now if I'm going forward and the ball is a little bit shorter and it's below the height of the net I'm unlikely to be using a flat shot I'm going to be trying to spin the ball and get it dipping if the ball is a little bit high and I'm trying to put the ball away then I'm going to try and hit more of a flat shot now on a high ball sometimes a flat shot has to be done but an open stance will be easier to rotate your shoulders forward so make sure that if you are open and you're trying to hit a flat ball then make sure that you're putting your shoulder through as much as possible so that you can maintain that long hit phase rather than pull off it too quick because then you're going to be unlikely to hit a flat ball similarly when you're trying to generate topspin perhaps even on a defensive ball when you've gone back you're going to have to drive up a lot more and get a lot more brushing motion going on even when you're moving backwards so you're going to struggle on that forward momentum but make sure that you counteract it with the turn but also with that racket head going as quickly as possible through your wrist and your arm now with a semi open it's almost an in-between you can still go forward a little bit and you can still drive up so it's a happy medium and that's why a lot of the pros will use the semi open stance quite a lot in the rallies that they hit okay and then neutral now for the drill so this drill we're going to split into two parts in the first part i'm going to be going one cross court one down the line with my forehand by here i'll be mixing up my spin and my flat shot with a spin i want to go cross court and i want to get the player out of position so i'm looking for width and angle i'm trying to get as much dip as i can and get that ball bouncing outside of that singles line making sure that my opponent would be running for that ball on the next ball i'm going to go down the line this is to recreate when the player hits back to my forehand and i'm doing like a put away shot or my aggressive shot down the line my cross court stance will be open or semi open and when i go down a line i'm going to try and get into the neutral stance if i can't get into that neutral stance it's okay but i'm still going to try and put my body weight forward as much as i can just so that can get that linear path through the ball part two to this drill is now working on exposing the player's weaker side which is the backhand so with this first shot i'm going to go heavy spin down the line try to find alex's backhand or my imaginary partner's backhand they'll likely go cross court but if it's high it's hard to get it really wide on that cross court shot so land more in the middle so then the second shot becomes that inside out forehand but it's going to be flat so aggressive spin down the line and then a flat shot inside out thank you so much for watching the video guys we hope you've enjoyed it and learned something new now if you have make sure you smash that like button make sure you leave a comment underneath the video let us know how you're getting on with your spin and your flat forehand and also share it with your friends so we can keep growing the channel and produce more videos like this for you in the future okay what happened to so make sure you stay tuned for that welcome to top tennis training in this video