Forehand Drive Against Backspin

As your skills develop, you may want to learn how to attack a backspin return instead of just pushing it back, particularly if you like to be offensive. The forehand drive is one option for attacking backspin. This stroke is similar to the forehand smash with only minor differences. When driving backspin, contact the ball with a more open racket angle and stroke more upward than in the smash. At contact the racket face is almost perpendicular.

I use the term "drive" to describe a "force" attack against backspin; whereas, I use the term "smash" to describe a similar stroke used to attack topspin. Other authors may use "drive" to describe either stroke. Also, the smash and drive differ from the loop by stroke energy being directed primarily toward the central core of the ball (a "force stroke") instead of toward the outer shell of the ball (a "friction stroke").

When first learning the forehand drive against backspin, it may be difficult to get the ball to clear the net. This is because the backspin causes the ball to rebound downward when it grabs into your rubber surface. To counteract this effect, it is necessary to stroke forcefully at high speed and/or open your racket angle even more, so you are actually striking the ball a little below center and driving the racket up through the ball. This will provide the necessary “lift” to get the ball to clear the net. The less racket speed there is at contact (such as when you're first learning the stroke or when you're being cautious in a match), the more open the paddle angle will need to be.

This is not an easy stroke to learn, so don’t get frustrated if it is difficult to execute with any consistency. It is OK to temporarily skip over the next lesson if you find it difficult to execute the forehand drive with consistency. In this case, do the remaining lessons and come back to Lesson 20 at the end.


Lesson 20: Forehand Drive

To learn this stroke, set the spin to backspin, the speed to 2, the frequency to 3, and turn the oscillator off when the robot head points to the middle of your forehand court. Practice the forehand drive first crosscourt, then down-the-line, and then alternate between the two directions. Next, turn on the oscillator and practice the forehand drive with the ball moving randomly inside your forehand court, then your whole backhand court, and finally 3⁄4 of the whole table from the middle of your backhand court to your forehand corner. Lastly, combine your forehand drive with the backhand push by setting the oscillator to sweep the entire table and practice pushing on your backhand side and driving on your forehand side. Your goal is 15 successful drives in a row at each stage.

Another good drill is to adjust the robot to shoot balls to your backhand and practice pushing a backhand followed by stepping out and doing a forehand drive from your backhand court. This is a particularly useful drill because it develops a variety of skills: a backhand backspin defensive stroke (touch), a forehand topspin offensive stroke (power), and footwork (quickness). Do this drill using no oscillation, then gradually turn the ball frequency up to 4.