Tennis - Don’t Roll Over The Ball

Don’t Roll Over The Ball

If you feel like you have to roll over the ball on your forehand and backhand to get any amount of top spin, please know that you don’t want to have that feeling. When you hit a forehand or a backhand with top spin, the goal should be to have the feeling like your racket is at the same angle before, during and after contact. What you do not want to have is a rolling over the ball feeling. And this is actually very common on one-handed backhands. Players will supinate and try to make this move, going over the ball, in order to be able to square up the racket and get the racket to put any amount of top spin on the ball.

It is just not possible

First off, just know that rolling over the ball is not possible. Because, the ball is not on the strings long enough that you can have the ball touch your strings, you turn the racket and then the ball leaves. If you just even think about the mechanics of that, how would you hit the ball, you smother over the ball? Wouldn’t that make the ball just go straight down into the ground because the ball goes for the strings point? So the idea of rolling over the ball is simply impossible. The ball is only on the strings for four milliseconds; four thousandths of a second. There’s no chance of it happening.

Close the rocket face prior to contact

If you’re someone who feels like you have to roll over the ball to get top spin, then what you actually want to do is close the rocket face prior to contact. When your strings point down prior to hitting the ball that that’s called closing the rocket face. That’s what allows you to swing up for consistent top spin. If you’re the type of player who when you’re hitting back hands and forehands you feel like you have to roll in order to get top spin sometimes, it’s because your racket is straight up and down in the back. If I place a nicker or dime or any coin on the side edge, the coin is balancing on the side edge. This is NOT what you want. What you want is, you want to tilt the strings down, so that the coin would fall off. See when your racket is straight up and down, and you swing to the ball the racket face is now open. And what does that mean. That means the ball is going to go over the fence.

Why do people make the mistake of learning how to roll over the ball?

And that’s what you see with beginners. Beginners will have their racket straight up and down. They’ll swing with the strings face open. The ball goes way out. So then they learn “Oh, I have to turn the racket to try to square up the racket to the back of the ball”. And then sometimes they time it perfectly and the ball goes in. Sometimes they do it too early they hit the bottom of the net. Sometimes they do it too late and the ball goes out. But every once in a while they’ll turn just in the nick of time, and they go “why can’t I do that every time”. It’s because you can’t do it every time. It’s impossible to time it perfectly every time. So what you want to do is tilt the strings down. And then as you approach the ball, feel like your racket is a few degrees closed just prior, during, and after contact. So you’re going low to high with your strings feeling as if they are the same angle, ever so slightly closed; think like one or two or three degrees closed. That’s the feeling you want to have as you’re hitting the tennis ball going from low to high. That gives you consistent top spin. Rolling like this will give you top spin if you’re swinging up as you do it and you time it so that your strings are straight up and down when you hit the ball or even a few degrees closed.

Rolling over the ball will not give you nearly as much top spin as a closed racket face would

If you even notice, I’m not able to spin the ball as much when trying to roll over the ball. If I keep the racket closed and I keep it at the same angle, you can see the rate and the RPM is much greater.

This is super common on the backhand. You’ll see players on the one hand of backhand. They won’t turn their grip far enough over to be able to close the racket face to be able to swing up the back of the ball and have the feeling like the racket is staying at a consistent angle through contact. So what they end up doing is getting to the ball with the racket open and then they feel like they have to smother the ball or roll over the ball. But when you actually watch it in slow motion, you see they’re not actually rolling over the ball as they’re hitting. They’re simply turning the racket trying to time it, even though it’s nearly impossible to do it on a consistent basis, trying to time it to actually square up the racket against the ball.

The fix

If you feel like you are rolling over the ball, it’s because your racket face isn’t closed prior to hitting. So tilt your strings down and then, that’ll give you the chance to swing up and put the consistent top spin on the ball that you’re looking for.