How to Hit a Tennis Ball with Topspin

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name's Lincoln Ward, I'm a USPTA certified tennis teaching pro here in Austin, Texas with Lone Star Tennis Company. Today I'm going to talk to you about how to hit a ball with top spin. The first thing you want to do when hitting a top spin ball is decide what grip you're going to hold. A semi-Western, an Eastern, or full Western grip, are generally the easiest grips to hold when hitting a top spin shot. Regardless of which grip you want to use, the cardinal rule in top spin is low to high. When you take your racket back, you want to start your racket real low to the ground, coming through to contact. Before you make contact, you don't want to drive straight through the ball. You want to come from underneath the ball and lift up, and over, like in a windshield wiper motion. This windshield wiper motion is what creates the top spin. If you drive straight through the ball, the ball will hit your strings and bounce straight off. You want to kind of grind the back of the strings as if you're peeling a potato. Brush up against it. You'll hear this nice little scratch sound any time you hit your top spin. And generally, you'll see a wear and tear in your strings, along with tennis fuzz. Tennis players love to have tennis fuzz in their strings. It means they're hitting some good top spin. I'm Lincoln Ward. That's how you hit a top spin ground stroke."