Time to transcend the general principles of ball abuse. While those principles apply to all players and all strokes, what follows is a prescription for how you should hit a topspin forehand. This prescription is not the only, or even necessarily the best, way to hit a ball. Still, it does represent a specific technique that I have carefully tested, simplified, and tailored for the less-than-gifted. But this forehand is not a baby stroke. This chapter describes the most efficient use of snap, leverage, and balance to create professional-level control, pace, and consistency.

A Violent Beginning

The Topspin Forehand (TSFH) unit turn is the transition from running or standing to hitting. Assuming you are a right-handed player beginning with weight on the RIGHT foot, you step into a semi-open stance with the LEFT foot. Pushing back with the LEFT foot powers the counter-rotation of the hips, shoulders, arms, and racket. As weight is 'loaded' back onto the RIGHT foot the counter-rotation slows and the pose is established. You straighten and lock the elbow in the pose and lift it high and away from the body. You should feel that you are backing away from the ball's flight path, giving the ball ample room to get by you. Your forearm should be moderately pronated, but the racket head above the wrist. The wrist is radial-flexed (cocked) so that the racket head is in front of the wrist. The positional relationship between the racket head and the wrist is critical. The pronation and cocking of the wrist put the racket head in position to properly 'wind-up' the forearm muscles when you start your forward hip and shoulder rotation.

An early, quick, and violent unit turn is the secret to 'quick hands'.

Note that counter-rotation does not necessarily stop, but it should slow down enough to allow the ball to reach the entrance to the strike zone. Conversely, if a run is required to reach the ball, the unit turn begins early in that run, and then you should approach any ball with the racket in the pose position. An early, quick, and violent unit turn is the secret to 'quick hands.'

Extending the RIGHT elbow is essential for both power and control. By increasing the length of your arm you massively increase leverage which is the key to optimum power. Try shadow stroking with elbow straight then bent and listen for the difference in sound of the racket head swishing trhrough the air. A bent elbow massively increses the degree of freedom of movement of the forearm which makes consistency nearly impossible. A crooked elbow feels 'more free' but adds nothing of value to any stroke.

The LEFT arm's participation in the forehand is manifold, but the key addition is to force you to counter-rotate your shoulders and hips instead of bringing the racket back from the shoulder. The former is correct, the later a disaster (see 'Zone of Experience'. One way to remember to reach across the body with the non-hitting hand is to pretend to prepare to catch the incoming ball with the LEFT hand.

Locking In Control and Spin

I call the Lock phase of any stroke the 'backswing proper' to emphasize its importance and to compel the performance of this essential but subtle movement. The footwork is confusing because you need to perform two counter-rotations in a row; a unit turn and then a backswing proper. The unit turn is 'motivated' by the initial step from the RIGHT (back) foot to the LEFT (front) foot into the semi-open stance, and while the unit turn itself is violent, that step can be pretty subtle. Once you have consolidated your weight onto the front foot, you perform a moderate push back towards the back foot, resulting in further, more subtle counter-rotation. This move deepens the racket-wrist relationship in the pose, momentarily increasing forearm pronation and wrist radial-palmer flexion).

The transition from Lock to Load should feel like snatching a falling sparrow out of the air.

The Lag is the one optional component of any stroke. Its sole function is to alocate stroke time to the generation of racket head speed which is the principal ingredient of blistering pace. If time is short, however, as in return of a hard serve or a deep ground stroke, the lag phase can be shortened or eliminated to buy time. Racket head speed is superfluous when the ball is coming in at 100 mph because if you hit the ball solidly you can reflect your opponents' power back at them. The technique for shortening the Lag phase is to shorten the unit turn - just don't counter-rotate your hips and shoulders as much. You should not shorten or otherwise change the backswing proper (Lock), since that is essential for adding control and spin which you always need. Shortening the unit turn and eliminating the lag creates the 'short stroke' forehand - a handy tool especially against an aggressive player.

The Lock-Load-Lag sequence separates the mechanics of pace production from the all-important generation of ball control and spin. This separation lets you hit as hard as you want while still enjoying superior ball control and consistency, as long as you respect the laws of simple ballistics. The gravest error we all make is to throw out the Lock and Load phases with the Lag phase when trying to trade power for consistancy. Without the Lock and Load, the 'snap', your forehand has neither the pace you want nor the consistency you need.

Explode to Release Pent-Up Control and Spin

The control and spin producing forces stored in your forearm will not produce control or spin unless you released them into the ball at the moment of contact. It is the acceleration of the hips, shoulders and arm, balanced by the inertia of the racket head, that keep those forces bottled up during the lag phase. To release those forces, that acceleration must be abruptly stopped immediatly before the moment of contact.

Contact only lasts .05 seconds, so any force released a tenth of a second after contact will contribute nothing to spin or control. If the forces are released too early, they will force the racket face to twist and turn in unpeasent and unproductive ways. The critical timing thus involves suddenly reducing the hip and shoulder rotation immediately before contact - anologous to slamming on the brakes before a collision. What stops the forward rotation is push-back from the front foot in the direction of counter-rotation. This is the last and most important component of 'stepping into the ball'. This counter-force won't stop the forward rotation, but will decrease it enough to allow the racket head to come through into the ball with all of the now-unapposed, stored forces behind it. Note that the racket may not change its orientation or velocity when those forces are released. It is better if those forces are not expressed as any change in position or orientation of the racket head until after the ball has left the racket (in the follow through).

To trigger the explosion of control and spin forces you must step back away from the stroke before contact. I believe that the importance of the explode phase explains the popularity of one of the oldest 'Black Pearls': "Step into the ball!" Unfortunately most players interpret this to mean "Step as you hit!" which will actually prevent the explosion that releases control. "Step then hit!" will yield better results.

Following Through

Why should the word 'followthrough' be used as a noun and not a verb? Because you just let it happen. Think of the followthrough as feedback, indicating what went right during the stroke. If you try to shape the followthrough during the followthrough, you will not get accurate information about the stroke. In any case, nothing you do while following through can affect the ball; the ball is gone. Instead, you should relax after contacting the ball and watch what happens. Both the elbow and wrist should flex, indicating that linear control forces were stored and released in the forearm and biceps. The forearm and racket should fully pronate, so the face of the racket eventually faces the LEFT fence. The pronation results from the storage and release of the stored rotational forces that create topspin. The wrist and racket should wrap around the upper half of the non-hitting arm, indicating a low-to-high overall trajectory that enhances net avoidance and adds to the topspin. Occasionally, you will follow through higher (when hitting a topspin lob, for example). But the whole point of this topspin style is to optimize pace, solid contact, control, and topspin which you can only achieve by deriving most of the topspin through rotational impulse, not brushing the racket face up the back of the ball.

When to Hit the Topspin Forehand

If you ask this question of most A players, the answer you will get is "You hit it whenever you can!" If you lump together the short-stroke form with the full stroke, the topspin forehand is the Swiss Army knife of tennis strokes, often used as a replacement for volleys, overheads, approach shots, reach shots, lobs, half volleys, even the backhand. An argument can be made for always hitting the stroke you always hit, but there are mechanically superior ways of handling volleys, high balls, routine lobs and approach shots, and variety can be as valuable as consistency. The topspin forehand, properly hit, is a natural stroke with excellent ballistics, depth, control, and the ability to handle incoming balls that are hard, soft, deep, short, and wide with relative ease. It is superior to the one-handed topspin backhand on return of serve because the semi-open stance is quicker to reach than the closed stance that the backhand requires.