Spin it to win it
Originally published on 17/11/16 00:00
TopspinPro is a revolutionary training aid that helps beginners and improvers master topspin. Coaches traditionally wait until a player has a solid command of the game to teach topspin, but Phillip Hofmeyr invented Topspin Pro to change that.
“Spin is what gives one consistency. Teach topspin first and you dramatically accelerate how soon someone is playing with consistency and power, making tennis much more fun,” explains Hofmeyr. “And teaching topspin to beginners saves you the trouble of changing their grips and getting them to ‘un-learn’ the strokes they were taught when they first started.”
It’s all very well playing shadow tennis with the low-to-high trajectory, but that does not give the sensation of the ball spinning off the stringbed. That’s where the TopspinPro helps players get to grips with the technique before trying it in real time.
The tripod construction features a tennis ball mounted on a flexible pivot that both spins and springs back when hit with topspin. Brush the ball without hitting the wings and the it will spin, pass between the wings and spring back, ready to go again. As with most skills, repetition is the key, until muscle memory kicks in, and before you know it, you’ve mastered topspin.
“By forcing you to keep the angle of your racket face constant and allowing you to feel what it’s like to brush the ball, TopspinPro combines both the visual and kinaesthetic elements essential to accelerated learning,” says Hofmeyr. “It focuses on the impact zone, where the racket face is between 75-80 degrees and encourages wrist use to generate spin.”
So confident is Hofmeyr in his invention, that he offers a 60 day money-back guarantee if it doesn’t help you master topspin.
We first featured TopspinPro in tennishead magazine back in June 2015, when Hofmeyr had launched a kickstarter campaign. Since then, he has sold more than 3000 units across 62 countries around the world.