hey guys in today's video i want to show you the difference between a flat forehand and a topspin
forehand let's start off with the flat forehand so the difference between flat and topspin is
what happens exactly at the moment of contact and i'm going to show you the flattest forehand of
them all something that was very common back in the wooden racket era so players used to have a
continental grip and at the moment of contact with the ball the racket would travel very horizontally
across the body like this so take a look when i do that so in a continental grip i'm going to
go horizontally across the body you can see that this ball has very little spin on it you can see
the trajectory of the ball it's a very flat shot now obviously you could make topspin by going up
with the racket even with a continental grip but this would require a little bit more of a forearm
or wrist movement something that rod laver used to do from time to time on his forehand so in this
particular grip it is possible to make topspin but it would involve some of the weaker parts of the
arm to make that more vertical swing path happen i'm going to try the rod laver forehand by trying
to go up with my wrist and forearm at the moment of contact in a continental grip and i can tell
you right away this feels very weak and the reason why it feels weak to do this in a continental grip
is that the hand is more positioned behind the racket and to be able to go up we would need
to go up with the wrist and this does not feel comfortable and this is where the more western
grips are more suited towards topspin because as we go over towards the western side let's
just take a semi-western grip for example now the hand is more positioned underneath the racket and
it is therefore a lot easier to have the racquet go more vertically across the ball so let's see
what happens if i go more vertical on the ball you can see right away that the ball is indeed
spinning more and there's also more net clearance so it turns out that the difference between a flat
forehand and a topspin forehand is what happens to the racket at the exact moment of contact if
the racket goes horizontally across the ball like this and you can focus on the tip of my racket
this means that the ball is going to be struck flat for example if you feed a ball out of your
hand this is usually the flattest ball there is a very horizontal delivery as soon as that racket
starts to travel vertically across the ball now we are imparting topspin and the topspin forehand
is ubiquitous at the high level you will not find a player who hits the forehand truly flat this is
something that doesn't exist anymore there used to be players back in a wooden racket era who struck
the forehand in this manner a very horizontal delivery but now all players will have more of a
vertical swing path but there are some differences in the way the topspin forehand is delivered some
players will have heavy topspin and other players will have more of a flat topspin delivery so on
the atp tour you predominantly see the heavy topspin on the other hand on the wta tour you'll
see some of the heavy topspin but you see a lot of players who have more of a flat topspin forehand
so let me show you what the difference is here's the atp style forehand with the heavy topspin and
here's the wta style forehand with more of a flat topspin delivery so you probably couldn't catch
the difference as far as my racket is concerned because that part of the stroke is accelerating
too fast it can't be seen with the naked eye but you can see it in the way the ball was shaped so
the atp forehand had a little bit more height and the wta style forehand with the flat topspin
delivery was a little bit flatter a common misconception is that a flat forehand doesn't have
any topspin this is absolutely not true so a flat top spin forehand because the flat forehand really
doesn't exist anymore all forehands at the high level have topspin on it this is why i'm
calling it a flat topspin forehand absolutely has topspin because as long as the racket is
traveling vertically in other words if it's going from the waist for example up towards the shoulder
or even if it's a lower finish if the racket is traveling more as a windshield wiper style
whereas going up and then down around the waist as long as this is happening the forehand will have
topspin on it so the difference between the topspin that's produced on the atp tour and
the topspin that's produced on the wta tour is the amount of rotations the ball has so what happens
on a heavy topspin forehand is that the tip of the racket will stay more towards the outside as
the racket's going up so this is the swing path on almost all atp forehands the racket will go
around the body like this so the tip of the racket never comes through in this fashion
on the wta tour on the other hand many players
will have the tip of the racquet come through but the racquet is also going vertical
so i'm going to show you both styles here's the atp style you can see that the
racquet will stay towards the outside as i'm hitting across
and here's more the wta style where the tip of the racquet will come through
you can see that the ball has a slightly lower trajectory on the second forehand so
it has less spin than the atp style forehand however i am still imparting topspin on that
forehand because the racket is traveling from a low position to a high position
so which forehand is better the heavy topspin forehand or the flat topspin forehand obviously
if we have a heavy topspin forehand we're not necessarily going to get more power because
more topspin actually reduces the power on the ball it reduces the ball speed however
because is more control imparted onto the ball it can be struck a lot harder so indirectly the
heavy topspin forehand has more power but let's just say it has more potential for power because
of the greater control the players possess they are able to hit the ball a lot harder on the
other hand a flat topspin forehand does require very good timing because if you hit the ball too
hard there are some chances that you're going to make more mistakes however what's fascinating
about the tennis game is that some parts of our game will happen intuitively so what will happen
at the high level with balls that are struck with maximum pace is that genetic
predispositions will take over so as much as players try to do this it will only happen
intuitively in other words i for example have a little bit more of a flat topspin forehand
the tip of my racket has more of a tendency to come through and this is not something
that i can control when i hit my forehand at full speed i can definitely control it when i
hit my forehand at lower speeds when i let my forehand rip when i absolutely crush it my genetic
predispositions do not allow me to hit a heavy topspin forehand so my tip of the racket ends up coming
through the ball in this way on most of my forehands as i stated in the beginning of
the video interestingly most of the wta forehands have a similar swing path to mine where the tip of
the racket comes through and what this stems from again it's genetics so wta players are obviously
not as strong as atp players so in order to generate power they need this little bit of
power from the racket to generate speed they will not be able to get sufficient speed if the racket
was going around the body this way because as i stated previously topspin actually takes power
out of the forehand atp players however are so strong they have so much acceleration
in the racket even though the ball is being slowed down they can whip that ball so hard and not only
generate control but also a tremendous amount of power so in other words wta players need a
little bit of help from the racket so let me show you my forehand for example i'm going to
absolutely rip this one and you take a look at the tip of my racket and let's see what happens
so i actually have no idea what happened to the tip of my racket on that forehand
because that part of the forehand happens too fast but i'm pretty sure that the tip
of the racket went a little bit through the ball before i came across this way
if i slow my forehand down then of course i can manufacture this heavy topspin swing path and
have more of an atp style where the racket is coming more vertically around the ball this way
so the important takeaway from today's lesson is that you do need top spin what you should always
try to do is trying to go vertically up and across the ball this is something that's very important
when it comes to control so topspin generates less power but it generates a lot more control
which then in turn gives you more confidence to swing faster