Three Common Mistakes When Learning Topspin in Pickleball
If you’ve been working on your topspin and it still feels unnatural or inconsistent, you’re not alone. Many players struggle with this shot because they’re unknowingly making fundamental mistakes that sabotage their technique before they even make contact with the ball. The good news is that these errors are surprisingly common and completely fixable once you understand what’s going wrong.
Tanner Tomassi has identified the three most prevalent mistakes players make when learning topspin, and his insights cut straight to the heart of why this shot feels so awkward for so many people. In a quick video, he breaks down each mistake with clarity and offers straightforward corrections that can transform your topspin from frustrating to functional.
The beauty of understanding these mistakes is that once you recognize them in your own game, the fixes become almost intuitive. You don’t need to completely rebuild your stroke or spend months drilling new muscle memory. Often, it’s a matter of letting go of bad habits and allowing the natural mechanics of the shot to take over. Let’s dive into each mistake and explore how to correct it so you can start hitting topspin with confidence and consistency.
Understanding Topspin: What It Is and Why It Matters
For those who might be newer to pickleball or haven’t yet explored the technical side of shot-making, topspin deserves a quick explanation. When you hit a ball with topspin, you’re brushing up and over it in a way that makes it rotate forward as it travels through the air. This forward rotation has some remarkable effects on how the ball behaves.
First, topspin causes the ball to drop more quickly than it would with a flat shot. This is incredibly valuable in pickleball because it means you can hit the ball harder and with more pace while still keeping it in the court. The spin pulls the ball down, giving you a wider margin for error. Second, when a ball with topspin bounces, it kicks forward and stays low, making it harder for your opponent to attack. This is why you’ll see advanced players using topspin on drives, third shot drives, and even some dinks.
The challenge with topspin is that it requires a very specific paddle path and contact point. Unlike a flat shot where you can simply push through the ball, topspin demands that you brush the ball at just the right angle. This is where many players get tripped up. They understand the concept but struggle with the execution because their mechanics are fighting against the physics of the shot. That’s exactly what these three mistakes address—the mechanical errors that prevent the spin from happening naturally.
Mistake #1: Muscling It With Your Arm
The first and perhaps most damaging mistake players make when learning topspin is trying to force the spin through sheer effort. There’s a natural tendency to think that more spin requires more power, so players grip the paddle tightly and try to muscle the ball by aggressively snapping their elbow and wrist over the top of it. This approach feels like it should work, but it produces the exact opposite result.
When you tense up your wrist and try to control the spin with brute force, you actually restrict the paddle’s ability to move freely through the proper path. Topspin isn’t created by pressing down on the ball—it’s created by brushing up the back of it. That brushing action requires fluidity and speed, not tension and control. Think of it like trying to skip a stone across water. If you grip the stone too tightly and force your wrist through the motion, it won’t skip. But if you keep your wrist loose and let it snap naturally, the stone glides across the surface.
Tomassi suggests thinking of the motion like waving hello, but sideways. This mental image is helpful because when you wave, your wrist stays relaxed and your hand moves naturally from your arm’s momentum. You’re not thinking about controlling every micro-movement of your wrist—you’re just letting it flow. The same principle applies to topspin. Your wrist should be loose, almost floppy, allowing the paddle to accelerate through the ball rather than being forced over it.
This might feel counterintuitive at first, especially if you’ve been grinding away trying to generate more spin by working harder. But once you release that tension and allow your arm to swing naturally, you’ll notice something remarkable: the spin happens almost effortlessly. The paddle’s momentum carries it up and over the ball, creating the rotation without you having to manufacture it. This is the essence of good topspin technique—working with the physics of the shot rather than against it.
Mistake #2: Starting With Your Paddle Sideways
The second mistake is more subtle but equally problematic. Many players begin their topspin stroke with the paddle face already turned sideways, perpendicular to the ground. This seems logical because they’re thinking about coming over the ball, so they position the paddle in what they assume is the right orientation. The problem is that starting sideways eliminates your ability to make proper contact with the ball.
When your paddle is sideways at the start of your stroke, you have very little surface area to work with when the ball arrives. You’re essentially trying to catch the ball on the edge of the paddle and then somehow rotate it over the top. This is mechanically very difficult and leads to mishits, weak contact, and inconsistent spin. More importantly, it prevents you from getting underneath the ball properly, which is essential for generating topspin.
The correct starting position is with your paddle tip pointing down toward the ground. This orientation gives you maximum surface area to make contact with the ball and sets you up for the proper upward brushing motion. When the paddle starts low with the tip down, you can naturally swing up and through the ball, allowing the paddle face to brush up the back of it and create the forward rotation you’re looking for.
This adjustment might seem minor, but it fundamentally changes how the stroke functions. With the paddle tip down, you’re not trying to force an awkward rotation mid-swing. Instead, you’re simply swinging up in a fluid arc, and the topspin happens as a natural consequence of the paddle path. The ball makes contact with the center of the paddle face, giving you control and consistency, and the upward motion imparts the spin without any extra manipulation required.
Players who make this correction often report an immediate improvement in how the shot feels. Suddenly, the ball is responding the way they expected it to, with noticeable spin and a consistent trajectory. That’s because they’re no longer fighting against the geometry of the stroke—they’re working with it.
Mistake #3: Finishing to the Side Instead of Over Your Shoulder
The third mistake involves the follow-through, and it’s the detail that many players overlook because they’re so focused on the moment of contact. But where you finish your stroke is just as important as where you start it. If you’re finishing your topspin stroke off to the side of your body, you’re cutting the motion short and leaving spin on the table.
The proper finish for a topspin stroke is directly over your shoulder, not out to the side. This finishing position ensures that you’re maintaining the upward and forward path of the paddle all the way through the shot. When you finish to the side, you’re essentially pulling the paddle across your body, which flattens out the angle and reduces the spin. It’s like trying to throw a curveball but releasing it too early—the rotation never fully develops.
Finishing over your shoulder completes the topspin motion in a way that maximizes the spin potential of the stroke. The paddle continues its upward arc all the way through, maintaining contact with the ball for as long as possible and imparting maximum rotation. This follow-through also helps with consistency because it keeps your body mechanics aligned. When you finish in the correct position, your weight transfer, shoulder rotation, and arm extension all work together harmoniously.
Tomassi emphasizes this point because it’s one of those details that separates players who occasionally hit good topspin from players who can hit it reliably. The follow-through is the punctuation mark on the stroke—it’s what tells your body that the motion is complete and done correctly. Skipping it or altering it to finish sideways leaves the stroke incomplete and undermines all the good work you did with your setup and contact point.
When you put all three corrections together—loose wrist, paddle tip down, finishing over your shoulder—you create a complete system that allows topspin to happen naturally. Each element supports the others, and the result is a stroke that feels smooth, generates consistent spin, and doesn’t require you to force anything.
Putting It All Together: The Complete Topspin Motion
Now that we’ve broken down each mistake individually, let’s look at how the correct technique flows as a complete motion. You start with your paddle tip down, giving yourself the proper setup to come up and under the ball. Your wrist stays loose and relaxed, not tense or controlling. As you swing through the ball, you’re not trying to muscle it or force the spin—you’re simply letting your arm’s natural momentum carry the paddle through an upward arc.
The ball makes contact with the center of your paddle face as you brush up the back of it. You maintain that upward path all the way through your follow-through, finishing with the paddle directly over your shoulder. The entire motion feels fluid and effortless because you’re working with the mechanics of the shot rather than fighting against them.
This might sound simple when laid out step by step, but the challenge is unlearning the habits that created those three mistakes in the first place. If you’ve been muscling your topspin for months, it will take some conscious effort to relax your wrist and trust the natural motion. If you’ve always started with your paddle sideways, dropping the tip down will feel strange at first. And if you’ve been finishing to the side, redirecting your follow-through over your shoulder will require deliberate practice.
The good news is that these corrections don’t take long to internalize once you commit to them. Unlike some technical changes that require rebuilding your entire stroke, these adjustments work within the framework of what you’re already doing. You’re simply refining the details that were preventing the shot from working properly. Many players report noticeable improvement within a single practice session once they understand what they were doing wrong.
Why These Mistakes Are So Common
It’s worth considering why these three mistakes are so prevalent among players learning topspin. Part of the reason is that topspin is counterintuitive in some ways. The natural instinct when you want to make a ball spin forward is to press down on it, which is exactly the wrong approach. Players see advanced players hitting with spin and try to replicate what they see without understanding the underlying mechanics.
Another factor is that pickleball paddles are different from tennis rackets or ping-pong paddles, and players coming from those sports sometimes bring habits that don’t translate well. In tennis, for example, you can generate topspin with a much more aggressive wrist snap because the racket head is smaller and lighter. In pickleball, the paddle face is larger and the sweet spot is different, so the technique has to be adjusted accordingly.
There’s also a lack of immediate feedback when you’re making these mistakes. Unlike a shot that goes into the net or sails out of bounds, a poorly executed topspin shot might still land in the court—it just won’t have the spin or consistency you’re looking for. This makes it harder to self-diagnose what’s going wrong. You know the shot doesn’t feel right, but you can’t pinpoint exactly why.
That’s what makes expert instruction so valuable. Someone like Tomassi can watch a player’s stroke and immediately identify which of these three mistakes is the culprit. Once you know what to fix, the path forward becomes clear. You’re not just randomly adjusting your technique hoping something will click—you’re making specific, targeted corrections that address the root cause of the problem.
How to Practice These Corrections
Knowing what to fix is only half the battle. The other half is practicing the corrections in a way that builds new muscle memory and replaces the old habits. Start by isolating each correction and working on it individually. Spend a practice session just focusing on keeping your wrist loose. Don’t worry about whether the ball is going in or how much spin you’re generating—just focus on maintaining that relaxed, fluid wrist action throughout the stroke.
Once that feels more natural, move on to the paddle position. Practice starting each stroke with the paddle tip down, even if it feels awkward at first. You might want to do this in slow motion initially, just going through the setup and making sure the tip is pointing toward the ground before you begin your swing. As this becomes more automatic, you can gradually increase the speed and fluidity of the motion.
The follow-through is something you can practice without even hitting balls. Stand in front of a mirror and go through the topspin motion, paying careful attention to where you finish. Make sure the paddle ends up over your shoulder, not off to the side. This kind of shadow practice helps build the neural pathways that make the correct motion feel natural.
When you’re ready to put it all together, start with easy, controlled rallies where you can focus on technique rather than power or placement. Hit topspin drives back and forth with a partner, concentrating on loose wrist, paddle tip down, finish over shoulder. As these corrections become more ingrained, you can gradually add more pace and start incorporating the shot into game situations.
It’s also helpful to video yourself hitting topspin and watch the footage. Sometimes you think you’re doing one thing, but the video reveals you’re actually doing something else entirely. Seeing yourself make these mistakes can be enlightening and helps you understand what needs to change. Compare your stroke to the demonstrations in Tomassi’s video and look for the differences.
The Long-Term Benefits of Proper Topspin Technique
Fixing these three mistakes doesn’t just improve your topspin—it opens up new dimensions of your game. With reliable topspin, you can be more aggressive from the baseline without worrying about hitting balls long. You can drive through the court with pace, knowing the spin will bring the ball down into play. This makes you more dangerous on offense and gives you more options for how to construct points.
Topspin also reduces unforced errors because it provides a margin for safety. A flat drive has to be hit with precise trajectory to clear the net and stay in the court. A topspin drive has built-in forgiveness—you can hit it a little higher or a little harder, and the spin will compensate. This consistency is invaluable in competitive play where errors are often more costly than winners.
Beyond the tactical advantages, there’s something deeply satisfying about hitting a clean topspin shot. When you brush up the ball perfectly and feel it jump off your paddle with that distinctive spin, it’s one of those moments that reminds you why you love this sport. Mastering topspin gives you a greater sense of control over the ball and a deeper understanding of how spin and pace interact.
As you continue to refine your topspin technique, you’ll find applications for it all over the court. You can use it on returns to keep the ball low and make it difficult for your opponents to attack. You can use it on passing shots to dip the ball at their feet when they’re at the net. You can even experiment with topspin dinks that bounce unpredictably and disrupt your opponents’ rhythm. The shot becomes a versatile tool in your arsenal rather than just something you occasionally attempt.
Final Thoughts on Learning Topspin
The journey to mastering topspin in pickleball doesn’t have to be frustrating or mysterious. By understanding these three common mistakes and making deliberate corrections, you can accelerate your progress and start hitting the shot with confidence. Remember that the key is to work with the natural mechanics of the stroke rather than forcing it through tension and effort.
Keep your wrist loose and let the paddle flow naturally. Start with your paddle tip down to maximize contact and enable the proper upward brushing motion. Finish over your shoulder to complete the stroke and maintain the spin all the way through. These three elements create a system that allows topspin to happen organically.
Be patient with yourself as you work through these corrections. Changing ingrained habits takes time and repetition, but the payoff is substantial. The difference between struggling with topspin and executing it consistently often comes down to these small but crucial details. Once you get them right, the shot transforms from something awkward and unreliable into something smooth and effective.
