Bat angles and swings

rajesh jha Asked 13 years ago

Hi coach,

I have seen professional players swing their bat across their body instead of a normal follow through. In your videos you have told me not to follow through with the bat across your body. Can you tell me the purpose and advantages of such a follow through on the forehand?

On the backhand topspin against backspin I'm able to topspin only with an open bat face, what should i do to achieve this with a closed bat face?

I can understand hitting the ball parallel to the table at the topmost point to topspin a topspin ball as u have explained in the video countering a slow spinny topspin but i have seen some elite players using an extremely closed bat angle on most of his backhand topspin shots irrespective of the fact that the incoming ball is a block or a topspin. Kreanga,it seems uses a closed bat angle even to lift the backspin balls on his backhand topspin. Is my observation correct? If yes,why do they do so and what's the advantage of it?

Thanks in advance

Alois Rosario Answered 13 years ago

Hi Rajesh,

For the forehand it is OK if you are playing the ball fast or also when you pivot and play a forehand from the backhand corner you will often see players swing lower.

For the backhand, if you want a closed bat then you need to swing through a lot faster to generate enough lift.  The safer option is to open the face of your bat especially when you are learning the stroke as it is difficult to generate enough speed when you are starting out with a stroke.