Hi guys, I’m Clay Ballard, Founder of Top Speed Tennis, and this is the first video
in a series of videos helping you get more topspin in your forehand.
Be sure to watch this entire video, because we’re going to go over two very important
techniques, or pieces, that are going to allow you to create the topspin.
Number one we’re going to talk about what is it that actually creates the spin on the
racket, there’s a lot of different misconceptions out there.
We’re going to talk about what creates topspin, and number two, we’re going to talk about
the perfect grip to use so that you can get topspin on your forehand.
If you don’t get the right grip you may never be able to create topspin, so be sure
to check this entire video out, and start to incorporate that into your game.
Let’s go ahead and get started.
OK, so before we get started with the actual grip, let’s first go over what is it that
creates spin.
You’ll hear a lot of misconceptions you’ll think people will tell you, or people will
tell you, you want to swing up on the ball, other people will tell you that you need to
swing pretty level, but it’s a downward motion of the racket head, all kinds of different
ideas.
But what you’ll see when you analyze the top players in the world, the racket as it’s
coming through contact, so let’s say this is contact with the ball, as it’s moving
through contact, the racket head is moving upward at roughly a 45° angle.
So that’s happening from a little bit of a wrist action, so the wrists are kind of
kicking upwards like the windshield wiper technique that you may have heard.
It’s also happening through a forward motion of the arm and an upward motion of the arm,
all of that we’re going to get to later in this series.
That’s the first thing we need to realize is that if we’re going to get topspin, the
path of the racket needs to be going roughly about 45° upward.
I can be a little bit less or a little bit more depending on how much spin you want to
get, but that’s the general idea.
Now a second thing we need to understand is that when the ball contacts the strings, these
strings need to wrap around the tennis ball, and grab that ball, and create a little bit
of pocketing.
That means these strings are actually going to bend a little bit.
We’re going to get to that much more in detail into the second video of the series,
we’re going to talk about string setup and racket setup.
So today what we’re going go over in detail, is the exact grip that you need to use.
Now that we understand overall what the racket’s supposed to be doing, and how the strings
are going to grip the ball, let’s talk about the proper grip to use in order to do that.
All right, so now that we understand the path and what the strings do, let’s go ahead
and get down to the proper grip.
And when talking about tennis grip, we’ll refer to this in many videos in the future,
but you’re going to look at your bevels that are on your actual racket.
So here on the very top of the racket with the head straight up and down, the top bevel
is going to bevel number one.
As you go clockwise around the racket, number one here, number two, three, four, all the
way around the racket.
Now for a standard topspin forehand, you’re going to be using bevel number three, which
is one’s on top, then two, three is directly on the side.
Or if you’re looking at a clock, 12:00 would be up and down, 3:00 would be to the side,
and that’s also bevel number three.
Now we’re going to be using this in relationship to the index finger, the bottom knuckle of
the index finger.
So you see here on my hand how I have a dot marking the bottom knuckle of my index finger,
I’m going to be placing that dot right on the side of the racket here.
So you can see that’s my, my grip. We’re looking from this way, my grip would be just
like that.
The bottom of your hand, or the meaty part of your hand opposing the bottom index finger
knuckle, so down here this bottom meaty part of your hand by your wrist, that’s going
to go all the way down to the end of the racket and barely just be off very slight amount,
off the end of the racket.
So most of that pad is going to be on the racket, and that’s going to allow us to
get a good firm grip, have control of the racket, and it’s going to put our hand in
a position to where we can get that wrist snap to create the topspin.
The last thing I want to mention here with the grip is that as I take my right hand on
the racket, instead of making a fist, I want to spread my fingers out to where I almost
have a small hook with my index finger.
What that’s going to allow me to do is as we’re making this forward motion, with that
hook there, now we’re going to be able to get that topspin action and get that wrist
snap, and we’re going to have a lot more leverage since we have that hook.
We’re going to have a lot better control of the racket.
Now let’s go ahead and start with some demonstrations of this, and we’ll practice a little bit.
Now let me go ahead and demonstrate a few different grips and talk about how this is
going to affect our topspin.
We talked about how the number three bevel on the side is the one where we want our index
finger on.
Let’s go back and talk first and give a demonstration about what I see a lot of people
do incorrectly which is put the index finger on bevel number two, which is more of a hammering-type
motion, a hammering-type grip.
I’ll see them trying to create topspin this way, and it’s an overall kind of an awkward
motion, and I’m really not getting a lot of topspin on that ball, because my hand isn’t
in a position to where it can move upward very easily.
As I turn it more to the side, now I can more easily move upward and get more topspin with
it more on the top in a hammering-type motion, that’s very difficult to do.
I’ll go ahead and hit a few more, and you’ll see that it’s very tough to get any kind
of topspin on there, I can only get a small amount even though I’m trying to get that
risk going upward.
Now let’s go ahead and turn a little farther to the right, where now my hand is going to
rotate to the right, and that index finger knuckle is going to be on the side.
And we’ll see how now this is much more easy to get topspin on that ball, and you
can see that ball is diving down in the court fairly nicely.
I’m just tossing some balls here, this is the way I would recommend that originally
you go ahead and get used to this.
Now the second, third position we can get into is actually turn it one farther over,
so this is an eastern forehand, and as I mentioned this is the one that Roger Federer uses, a
lot of other professional tennis players use.
As we go one farther, this is what you’ll see, sometimes Nadal use, which is a semi-western.
And that goes all the way down to the number four bevel, and that’s really going to get
your right hand in a position where you can really go upward on the ball, and get that
snap with your wrist.
If you want to create even more topspin, and we can see that’s really getting that ball
to dive down in the court, so the number three or the side of the grip is going to be your
standard, stock, topspin forehand grip.
If you want to get a little bit extra, you can go over to number four.
The only disadvantage, you won’t have quite as much penetration and driving power with
that number four grip.
The main thing, the main point of this video is to make sure we stay away from that number
two bevel with the index finger.
That’s not going to get our hand in the position where we can generate enough snap
of the wrist to get the topspin that you’re wanting to have.
Now last thing that I’d recommend to actually incorporate this into your game, is take baby
steps.
Remember we’re all about building pieces from very small, and then building up faster,
and faster.
So take a rubber band around your wrist here, and slide that over your hand once you’ve
got the perfect grip, or you’ve got your grip the way you want it to be.
That’s going to help you to keep your hand still and then not re-grip.
We will be re-gripping a lot in tennis, but not when we’re learning this original motion.
I want to get my hand in the right spot, put a rubber band on there, then practice just
by tossing some balls as I was earlier, until you get very, very comfortable with that three
grip or the four grip.
And as you’re doing this I want to make sure that we’re allowing to get some top
spin.
That wasn’t very good [laughs].
We’re allowing that wrist to snap upwards, get some topspin on there, and we’re really
getting comfortable with that motion.
So practice this, start out with a rubber band, just tossing some balls.
Once you get completely comfortable with that, that’s when you’re going to take it out
and play with this grip, with an opponent or hitting on the ball machine, and incorporating
that into your game.
So hope you guys really enjoyed this video, and as I mentioned before, this is the first
video in an entire series of videos going over how to get massive amounts of topspin
ion your forehand.
So be sure to click the subscribe button, that way you’ll be notified whenever we
come out with future videos.
And if you want to see this entire series, I’m going to play a preview of another video
from this series.
You want to want that video plus the entire series absolutely free of charge, click the
link that’s going to pop up in your screen, or down below in the description, you’ll
go to a place on the website where you can sign up for your free membership.
You’ll be able to watch that entire series absolutely free of charge, and start putting
more topspin on your forehand, and playing better tennis.
I look forward with you guys much more in the future, and I’ll see you all soon.
…and make this L-type motion with our arms, and then the racket needs to be pointed out
at basically a 45° angle.
So the racket’s going to be at a 45, and the tip of the racket from the butt end, will
be pointing right over toward 3:00.
That’s the first motion that we want to get into.
So as we’re loading up, the racket tip is going to be pointing out toward 3:00, and
at about a 45° angle.
Now the second move is where the, really the magic starts to happen, and that’s the loading
of the forearms.
This is called a stretch-shortening cycle.
So anytime you’re going to have a lot of power and fire your muscles with good speed
and good power, we need to first stretch those muscles and then fire them.
So what’s going to happen here from this first move, we’re now going to make a motion
which would be very similar to turning a doorknob to the right with your wrist.
So as we’re doing the first motion, first piece here, racket’s out to the right.
Now as I’m coming back, I want to go ahead and turn my hand to the right as though it’s
a doorknob.
I’m going to do this until the tip of my racket now instead of pointing at 3:00 is
all the way back to about 7:30.
Now don’t mistake this with your…