Pickleball Topspin For People Who Still Don’t Get It

Hi, I'm Maeve Ignatovich. I'm a professional pickleball player on the PPA Tour, and today I will be teaching you topspin. This is gonna be topspin 101. So if you struggle with understanding topspin, this is the video for you. So topspin 101, the secret to topspin is, it is not complicated, and I'm gonna tell you right now, but you're gonna wanna sit down for this. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna sit down in the middle of a court, you're gonna grab yourself a couple of balls, and all I want you to do is place the balls on the ground, put your hand on top of the ball, and just roll it forward. That's all you're gonna do is roll the balls forward. You can do it in both hands, so you could feel the continuous motion of the ball rolling forward. And friends, that's all topspin is, is a ball rolling forward, the continuous motion of a ball rolling forward. Now in pickleball, when we say topspin, the ball is just, it's doing this in the air. So the ball is rolling forward through the air, and when it bounces, it hits the ground and it springs up because it's not just a dead drop, it's a, do you see that? It's a forward momentum bounce. So for all the scientists and NASA workers and engineers in the comments, if you wanna go and explain why this is, please let me know, cause I'm not actually sure, I'm just a pickleball player, but that's all topspin is, is a ball rolling forward. We need to do this in the air, right? So once we figure out how to get the ball to roll forward in the air, that's when we're generating topspin. Now, how do we do this? Now I'm sure you've heard the terms brush up on the ball or pet the dog. Now those are confusing, right? A little bit confusing. All that your coach is ever trying to get you to do when they use those terms, is all they want you to do is hit up on the back of the ball and spin it so that you can get the ball to roll forward through the air. So I want you to practice this feeling of topspin, this feeling of getting the ball to roll on our paddles. So I'm next to a wall right now, I have my paddle. I'm just gonna press the ball up against the wall and I'm gonna practice rolling it against the wall using only my wrist. Cause a lot of the times the topspin isn't coming from the shoulder movement, it's not coming from the slant of the paddle, it's coming from the wrist, especially on drives and rolls out of the air. So all I'm doing is rolling it up and down and I'm practicing feeling the ball roll on my paddle using just my wrist. Now, so a lot of the time when I'm explaining topspin to beginners, I talk about this concept called the wave. I say, pretend you're waving at an ant or a bug or something and that's the feeling that you should have mid stroke. So in the middle of the stroke, your paddle comes back and then accelerates forward just like a little wave to a baby ant. And that's how I brush the ball up and I get the spin is not through my shoulder, right? Not through a continuous shoulder stroke, but through the wave at contact point right before contact point really is I'm just taking my paddle back and then kind of whipping it forward with this generation of spin. So drop the paddle face, wave, and then finish over the shoulder. Those are kind of the three things to the stroke, right? So you're gonna take your paddle back, drop it, and then accelerate through. There's only so much I can cover in a video, but lucky for you, I've put together a 58 page in-depth complete pickleball system roadmap from beginner to pro. It covers every shot in pickleball, high-level strategies. It has over 20 different drills that I use and it even has structured practice plans for every single level from 2.5 to pro. If you're interested in really transforming your game, this is the missing piece, a collection of everything I've learned for the past few years playing on tour. Secrets from the best players in the world. I'll leave a link in the description and pinned comment down below. I highly recommend you check it out. Now, topspin is wristy. I'm sure we've all have coaches in our lives tell us don't use your wrists, but if you're not getting really wristy with your stroke, you're missing out on a ton of topspin. So I encourage you, don't be afraid of using your wrist here. Don't be afraid of practicing, repping that on the wall with the feeling of rolling it on your wrist and make sure that you're not missing out because you're afraid of using your wrist. The wristier, the better when it comes to topspin. So this term of brushing up on the ball, I've never liked it because I always think of brushing someone's hair and I'm like, what does that mean? I don't understand it, but I'm gonna use Drew's head here for a reference. And so all that brushing up on the ball means is brushing the back of the ball. So petting the dog, right? So Drew's head is contact point. I need my paddle slanted at, I think that's a 45 degree angle, but I never took geometry so I'm not sure, at an angle, okay? We can call it 45 degrees for the sake of me sounding smart. So paddle slanted at a 45 degree angle. If your paddle is not slanted down, you're not going to be getting enough spin because your paddle needs to be slanted in order for you to kind of brush the spin, brush the ball forward. If it's like this and you're trying to brush, where's that ball going? It's not gonna go straight, right? So you need your paddle slanted at a 45 degree angle at contact point. And then all you're going to do is brush over the ball like you're petting a dog, right? Or you're petting your boyfriend, right? What if I don't have a boyfriend? You do have a boyfriend. Your boyfriend is me. So I'm petting Drew's head like this at contact point, spinning his head forward and then going through over my shoulder. So when you're getting, when you're practicing topspin, right? I really recommend finishing over your shoulder because if you finish straight through the ball, you're not closing your swing. You need to finish over your shoulder because you need to close your swing so that the ball dips into the court. So notice how I'm standing to the side of Drew when I do this. I always want the ball to be a little bit in front of me and to the side of me. If I'm directly behind the ball, I'm not going to be able to hit topspin on that ball because my body is going to get in the way. You want to make sure that you're spaced out in front of the ball. You're at a good arm's length distance and that you're brushing over it. Now, topspin is fairly difficult to learn. It takes some time, right? But once you really get it down, it's good because you can rely on it. Topspin is what keeps the ball in. It keeps the ball curving into the court. So if it's ever windy, if you ever feel like you're in an environment where pickleballs are so light, right? If they're blowing off the court, if you're hitting it and it's going into the fence, if you really get down your topspin, that'll make it so that you can keep the ball in in those unpredictable weather conditions. Topspin isn't just beneficial on serves and drives. It's also beneficial to learn topspin dinks, topspin speed-ups, speeding up out of the air. If you're speeding up a lot and you're not using topspin, if your partner, sorry, if your opponent gets out of the way, typically your speed-ups are going to be going out if you're not putting any topspin on them. Topspin keeps the ball in the court. It's pretty foundational, but once you get it down, it's the most important thing that you can add to your pickleball repertoire. So for the backhand, if you want to get really good, consistent topspin on your backhand, I recommend a two-handed backhand. And the most important thing here is that you are starting with a slanted paddle face, right? So same thing on the forehand, on both sides for good topspin, you need a slanted paddle face. So this is horizontal. I'm turning it towards the net about maybe 20%. And then that is your starting point for topspin. That is the angle your paddle should be at contact. Now for the backhand, right? The topspin is going to be coming from your left hand. It's not coming from your right hand. So this is not going to be as beneficial when it comes to getting topspin than this, right? Do you see how this is a nice, easy, smooth movement? So for getting topspin on the two-handed backhand, hold your paddle with your left hand and try and do the same thing that you get on the forehand for topspin, right? Brush the back of the ball forward into the court, finish over your shoulder. I'm catching the back of the ball and then brushing it up, right? That's all topspin is, is using the back of the ball and the angle of the paddle to roll it up and roll it forward. So it's a lot easier to feel this motion when you're hitting with one hand than with two hands. So I would recommend trying this with your non-dominant hand a couple of times, generating some topspin before you put your dominant hand on the paddle and then try it again and just really accelerate through the ball. Keep that slanted paddle face and just bring the ball into the court. Again, it's really wristy. The wristier you can be with it, the better the topspin will turn out. And that is a promise and a guarantee. 100% of your money back if you are not satisfied with that tip. And as always guys, practice this on a wall. The wall will be there for you when no one else wants to practice hitting lefty topspin dinks with you. So find yourself a wall and that's the best way to do this. It's a lot easier if you choke up on the paddle a lot. Thank you so much for watching. Please like and subscribe and let me know in the comments what you think I should cover next. And as always, check the pinned comment and description for my complete Pickleball system roadmap from beginner to pro. It has 20 drills, practice plans for every single level and high level strategies from the best players in the world. Make sure you check it out.