The Modern Topspin Forehand

 by Oscar Wegner

Ever wonder why top tennis pros like Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras hit such great forehands using an open stance, while your pro drills you to put your left foot forward and close your stance?

Why do those tennis greats wait until the last possible moment to take the racquet back, while you are constantly drilled to take your racquet back as soon as you see the ball coming your way?

Why they bend the arm in the follow-through while your pro teaches you to keep your arm straight?

Pros play an entirely different game than what is taught by conventional teaching methods but it is obviously the right way to play. And it is a game that you can be and should be playing yourself.

Tennis is a beautiful visual sport and most analysis has been done from a visual viewpoint. It is easy to get the illusion that the force and effort should go in the direction of the ball. This has misled students and teachers alike, without the realization that the top pros use their force and energy in a completely different way.

Visually, it seems that to exert maximum power, you need to hit forward. But physics and also a simple test will tell you that moving the racquet horizontally through the hitting zone, with the racquet face strictly vertical, will send the ball to the bottom of the net.

Picture yourself with an unopened half-gallon carton of milk in your hand, standing at one baseline, and wanting to throw it underhand over the net. Would you throw it forward only or also upwards?

Next, intend to throw it with a bit of forward rotation (topspin). Would your arm and effort go up even more?

Now, imagine trying to throw the milk carton over the net at 1700 RPM, like an average Agassi topspin forehand rotation. Where would most of your effort go?

The following may seem an oversimplification, but this is how simple and powerful the top pros forehands really are. 

Timing

On your forehand, as you run or wait for the ball, follow and stalk the ball with the racquet out front. By stalking I mean follow the ball as if you were going to catch it, rather than as if you were going to strike it.

This is especially important after the bounce. Keep the racquet in front as long as you can. Follow the ball without making any decisions. Try to keep your mind blank. Just look at the ball intensely and follow it with your racquet.

You may have an intended target, but hold this thought until you are about to discharge your stroke. When the ball is near, take your best swing and let your instincts fly. Most players tend to panic when waiting so long, but trust your instincts and your feel and allow them to guide your stroke. 

In 1992 I coached Bjorn Borg for his second comeback. He was preparing too early for his forehand and had lost his timing and feel. I told him to wait longer, that the longer he waited for the ball the more time he would have. He said "that is not logical." But soon he recalled how long he tracked the ball in his famous 1980 Wimbledon final against John McEnroe. He started applying the concept, and quickly regained his strokes. After 20 days of practice he tested this against Pete Sampras, then number three in the world, and lost a very close match, 7-5, 7-6, with two set points in the second set tiebreaker. 

I recommend this mental waiting, even if you are attacking the ball. You'll see a huge change in your efficiency and enormous increase in feel, which will allow you to maximize power and still retain control. 

The longer you hold your racquet out front, before discharging your full swing, the more time you will seem to have. Rather than preparing early, work the other way around. At first, you may hit a few balls late, but soon you’ll find your “personal” timing - your comfort zone. Some players learn this mental “waiting” from the beginning and instinctively become top players. These players never realize most people operate the opposite way.

Timing is the most important factor at the top level of the game. Executing a bit too early will cause you to lose the feel. A prime example of this is Pete Sampras, who in the last three years has been in and out of the Zone, accounting for some beautiful performances, but having many others he'd rather not think about.

Low to High and Across

Your racquet should approach the ball from below, and then pull up and across the body. A closed racquet face through the swing, with the palm facing down, is preferable for topspin players. The racquet may turn closer to a vertical position near the hit, but keeping it closed as long as possible through your upward swing will prevent the ball from flying too high.

Try to make contact towards the bottom of the strings, as if you were stroking it with the end of your fingers, not your palm. The main thing is to focus on finding the ball well, and then to finish across your body or over the opposite shoulder. Reinforce this finish by keeping your racquet there for a short time, even while you are turning back to cover the court.

Make this finish the only mental picture you'll ever have.

When to Discharge the Power

The modern forehand is not a hit but a push, meaning that the brutal acceleration starts near the impact, not from way back. The ball speed that results from the forehand stroke is more influenced by the acceleration you apply at contact time than by your racquet speed. This solves the mystery of John McEnroe, for example, who could generate great ball velocity with practically no backswing at all.

To this equation you can add the factor that in a push your muscles tighten up and this connects more body mass to the impact as well.

This is true for many other champions. Even though their swing is sometimes pretty big, they approach the ball slowly and only  make the racquet go faster as they close to it.

Summing it Up

When striking the ball, the hand has to come up and across the ball with the arm bending forcefully, not extending. The forward component of the hit is the natural inclination of the aggressive nature of the tennis player and it has to be tamed with the habit to come up and across.

Notice how your favorite pro follows the ball with the racquet, how he strokes it, how he finishes, and copy that. Study the videos in the ProStrokes Gallery. Fix your eyes on the player, slow down the speed and you’ll see his stroke from a new perspective and you’ll learn a lot more.

Footwork

A lot has been written about foot position and footwork - too much I believe. You should not have to focus on the position of your feet. Do whatever comes natural. The more conscious attention you put on your footwork, the more you get distracted from the most important task at hand: getting the ball in the court.

Your instincts will take care of your moves. You learned to move around when you were a little kid. To bring your natural movements into your conscious attention is an aberration of nature. It's as if you tried thinking about which foot to put forward when you are chasing your dog down the street. You'd probably fall down. So why do it on the court?

On the contrary, run and move around naturally, like in your kitchen, jump at the ball and blast it if you like. As long as you have topspin rotation and you make sure you clear the net, the ball will most likely land in the court. Eventually, the body will get into sync with your intentions, and just like Sampras or Agassi, you’ll be hitting the ball close to the lines.

Open Versus Closed Stance

The open stance places the racquet closer to the ball so you don't have to chase it with your arm. Your whole body, coiled for power, will uncoil freely, rotating and going to the left (right-hander). One of the findings that needs to be studied in more depth is the body displacement (a right-hander moves to the left). This is very noticeable in some of the top pros.

The closed stance is very comfortable, balanced, and stable when you are waiting for the ball. You could compare it with a bullfighter with the ball being the charging bull. But remember the bullfighter’s intention is to let the bull go by. How would you stand if you want to punch the bull in the mouth and flip him back? If you were strong enough to do that, would you rather keep your right arm coiled and up front or bring it back behind you?

The closed stance causes some serious problems. As you rotate in your forward swing, you may find yourself in a somewhat twisted position, precariously balanced, your knees straining from this twist. For right-handers, most left knee pain and injuries come from this  closed forehand stance. 

As Jack Kramer, the “father” of professional tennis, told me personally that you can’t recover quickly from this type shot and you’ll leave an open court.

So a beautiful, fluid, sideways stroke, following the ball towards the target, and perhaps catching the racquet with full extension of both arms, is as efficient in playing a point as a statue commemorating the best stroke. Very beautiful indeed! 

Forehand Grip

Regarding the big controversy of which grip is best for the forehand, I want to make a most important point here. The grip is the relation between the hand angle and the angle of the racquet. This feel is most delicate and should not be disturbed - the risk is a huge loss of feel and confidence.

A kid, or even an adult taking up tennis late in life, grips the racquet in a way they feel comfortable and efficient with. Kids tend to go further under the grip when they are little because that allows them to “punch” the ball upwards. They see the net as a high obstacle, and they know instinctively, and from feel, that they have to hit up. Therefore we can define the very young kid’s purpose on groundstrokes - to clear the net.

Older Players

Learning topspin may be less natural for an older player. An adult sees the net as a low barrier, so their tendency is to try to hit the ball down into the opponent’s court.

Therefore, the grip an adult prefers will instinctively differ from the child’s and so will the stroke. But who are the best learners? Usually kids, right?

Within minutes of the first experience as a tennis player, a person feels a certain grip and sees the results, such as the ball going over the net and into the court. This observation has set the experience into their instinct for life. Yet it may have been just a few shots on their first day on a tennis court.

The solution that makes adults learn as quickly as kids is to put a string three feet over the net during their first lessons and make them hit over that. With Wilt Chamberlain, who wanted to learn topspin late in life, and who I believe was 7 ft. 3 in. tall, I had to put the string 6 ft. over the net.

Only instinctive, perhaps gradual grip changes a player experiences naturally as he/she strives to become more efficient, will add to his/her game. Any forced effort to change will need countless hours of practicing to become natural, and this may not sink in and feel right. So why risk ruining for life a kid who may have a future as a pro, regardless of the “weird” grip used. 

An extreme example was Berasategui, from Spain, a former Top Ten in the world and there are countless others. Berasategui was counseled in America to change his grip. Uncomfortable and back in Spain, the National School encouraged him to stay put on perhaps the most exaggerated western forehand grip ever and it became one of the biggest strokes in the game. I don't recommend this grip for anyone else, but that’s the way he learned it early in life.

Players tend to shift their grip slightly over the years, and with practice, find the most efficient and most comfortable feel for their own game. A kid that started with a western grip may end up with an eastern grip as a pro.

I may give the student a bit of grip guidance when they first start, to see which way they feel it best. But I tell them to find it by feeling the grip, without looking at the position of the hand. In other words, I make them trust their feel.

Therefore, unless a grip is too awkward, or too inefficient, like a continental on the forehand, or too far below like an extreme western grip, I don’t disturb it, and I let the player find their favorite grip position through practice time.

Oscar Wegner began his quest to introduce his breakthrough teaching techniques in the National Tennis School in Barcelona, Spain, in 1973. He encouraged the coaches and players to follow the topspin style of Spanish great Manuel Santana, two-time Grand Slam winner Rod Laver, Jack Kramer and Bill Tilden among other former champions. Oscar's teachings included a natural open stance on the forehand and swinging across the body, rather than following the path of the ball.

From 1982 through 1990 he promoted the same techniques to a large tennis academy  for kids in Florianopolis, Brazil, helping coach Guga Kuerten until he was fourteen.

From 1991 through 1995 he taught weekly on the New Tennis Magazine Show/ Tennis Television with Brad Holbrook, and, by Richard Williams own admission "made so much sense that he adopted them to coach Venus and Serena".

From 1994 through 2000 Wegner worked for ESPN Latin America and for PSN, commenting on Wimbledon, the French and Australian Opens, ATP and WTA tournaments, and the Davis Cup.

Oscar is currently in Los Angeles where he is developing his website academy, tennisteacher.com

Last Updated 11/15/01. To contact us, please email to: webmaster@tennisone.com

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