Tip 1

If you feel like you’re able to hit your third shot drop consistently and you want to get more aggressive in transition, add the topspin drop to your game!

Adding topspin makes your drop more offensive. Topspin brings the ball down, so it allows you to swing harder and still keep it in the kitchen.

The first step to hitting topspin drops is recognizing how spin is created in the first place. Spin is generated based on the direction that your paddle is moving when it makes contact with the ball. If your paddle is moving up at contact, it will make the ball spin forward. That is your topspin.

In order to hit a topspin drop, you’ll keep a similar backswing to a regular drop–in that you will still keep the paddle in front of your body at all times. Even when you are looking to generate topspin, you shouldn’t use a backswing on the drop.
As you bring the paddle down, drop the tip towards the ground. As you swing towards the ball, rotate your paddle tip up with your forearm, and raise your shoulder, striking the bottom half of the ball as you swing from low to high. Follow through right in front of your chest, and avoid taking too big of a follow through up to your shoulder. That may cause you to overhit.

Tip 2

If you find that your topspin drops are always going way too high, it might be because you’re “popping up” with your body as you swing. As you hit a topspin drop, it’s very important to stay grounded. That is, your feet should stay on the ground, your knees should be bent, and you should avoid extending your knees up quickly. Although pushing up with your legs will create more upward momentum, which may seem like it would lead to more spin, it will raise your paddle too fast which can cause the ball to go too high. If you keep a consistent knee bend throughout the swing, and swing using your shoulder from low to high, you’ll be able to keep the ball low with spin so you can approach the kitchen successfully.

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