Involving the legs a bit more and finishing forward
martink asked 5 years ago
Hi there,
I am currently working on using my legs more when doing a fh topspin. I try to stand a bit more side-on with my right foot when the ball arrives, foot well planted on the ground, and then feeling that the legs rotate together when doing the loop. However, I am not sure if I am finishing forwards. I feel that landing on my left foot feels a bit too much sideways. What is the right feeling of going forward, but still rotating sideways?
martink answered 5 years ago
To elaborate on this, I always find the sideways rotation a bit contradicting with finishing forwards. On higher balls and faster topspin finishing drives, I almost always also finish with my arm on the left side, instead of the salute position. Should I always strive to end in the salute position, or is it acceptable to sometimes finish on the left side? Yes, sometimes the body might be moving a bit sideways when a lot of force is excessed.
Tom Academy Coach answered 5 years ago
Hi Martin, this is great point you’ve raised here. Firstly you are absolutely doing the right thing trying to be slight more side on as you play your forehand topspin, you should feel as though the rotation still ends up transferring your weight forward. If you feel like you are coming across side ways you may need to rotate back more at the start of the shot and then have a smaller follow through which allows you to finish in the salute position more. I think every now and then its not a big problem if you go slightly past this salute position when you are going for real power or on a high ball, as long as you feel you can still recover.
Going back to the legs and rotation, on the forehand topspin it should be a combination of body rotation with the use of the legs and wight transfer from back to front, if you only use rotation or only use weight transfer you will not get as much power it must be both together to gt the best effect and consistency. This feeling of using weight transfer should also make it much easier to feel like you are going forward and not across to far as well.
We’d be happy to take a look at a video of you doing this and give our input as well as sometimes it’s easier to pinpoint key areas in technique when watching it and analysing. Hope that gives you something to work with in the mean time!
