How to Play a Forehand Drive in Table Tennis

Last Updated on April 25, 2024 by Alex Horscroft

What Is a Forehand Drive?

The forehand drive is one of the fundamental strokes of table tennis. It is an attacking stroke that you play on your forehand side. It is fairly flat and produces light topspin.

The forehand drive serves as your foundation for more advanced attacking strokes on your forehand, so it’s important you get the technique correct to prevent trouble later on.

When Should I Play a Forehand Drive?

Should

You can play forehand drives against balls with topspin, sidespin, no spin, or light backspin.

Use forehand drives when you are fairly close to the table. They are quick and easy to perform which makes them well suited to close-distance play.

Shouldn’t

You shouldn’t play forehand drives against balls with heavy backspin as the drive does not produce enough spin or speed to attack these balls.

Avoid using forehand drives when you are far from the table. They lack speed the speed of smashes, and the spin of loops – those are the two shoots you should use when further away.

How to Perform a Forehand Drive

For simplicity’s sake, below I have broken down the forehand drive into the four distinct sections: your stance, build-up, the striking of the ball, and your finish & recovery.

Step 1: Stance

• Stand within arm’s length of the table. With your elbow bent at around 90°.
• Feet shoulder-width apart or more. To provide a strong well-balanced base.
• Dominant foot further back than non-dominant foot. This makes it easier to execute a forehand drive.
• Weight on the balls of both feet. Improves your ability to react to incoming balls.
• Knees slightly bent. Improves your balance and stroke effectiveness.
• Leaning slightly forward. Improves your control and power.
• >90 bend at the elbow. You can go a little more if you like.
• Bat directly in front of you. Ready to perform the stroke.

Step 2: Build Up

• Twist to your forehand side at the hips by around 20-40°. This is where you derive much of the power from.
• Keep a small gap between your elbow and body. In doing so, your drive will be more fluid and less robotic-like.
• As you twist, imagine your elbow and arm are locked so they move in unison. Again, this ensures your hips are doing most of the work — not your arms.
• Close your racket angle relative to the incoming spin. The greater the spin, the more you close your bat angle.
• Shift your weight onto your dominant back foot. To load up for the stroke.

Step 3: Striking the ball

• Reverse your twist at the hips while keeping your elbow and arm in unison. This ensures the driving force behind the stroke is your hips as previously mentioned.
• Transfer your weight from your back foot to your front foot. Introducing this weight shift further increases the power of your drive.
• Contact the ball at the top of the bounce. As this creates the largest angle for you to play the shot successfully.
• Strike the ball with a slight upward motion to produce topspin at the top of the bounce. Topspin helps propel the ball forward and downward which means you can hit the ball harder.

Step 4: Finish and Recovery

• Follow through with the stroke. Your bat should finish approximately down the center line of your body.
• Finish your stroke with your index finger pointing towards where you want the ball to go. This helps you gauge if you are finishing the stroke too short or over-extending.
• Return to the ready position. As with all strokes, you should return to the ready position after completion. This prepares you for whatever shot your opponent will play.

Recommended Videos to Help You Learn

If you’re short of time and want to learn how the forehand drive looks in action check out this tutorial featuring Jason Sugrye — a British and Irish champion. It’s just over 2 minutes long and breaks down most of the components of the forehand drive very clearly.

Another great video is this one by Tom Lodziak — a table tennis coach. He goes into a lot more detail so I recommend giving it a watch. The one thing I want to mention though is that his stroke length is a touch shorter than is ideal. Remember to finish with your bat roughly down the center line of your body.

Common Mistakes

1. Finishing the stroke across the body. Don’t finish your stroke crossing your body. Your racket should finish out in front of you. If your paddle finishes on your backhand side you have gone too far.
   
2. Using mostly arm. Nearly all of the movement from the stroke comes from the twisting of the hips. Not the arms.
   
3. Tucking your elbow too much. While it’s great you’re tucking your elbow you need a small gap between it and your hip. If you don’t your drive will feel awkward and it will lack power.
   
4. Forgetting about your angle. You need to remember to account for the spin on the ball. Open or close your bat angle accordingly.
   
5. Striking the ball as it’s falling. You should hit the ball at the top of the bounce. This is because it gives you the greatest margin for error. You should only strike descending balls with spinny shots such as loops. Even then hitting the ball at the top of the bounce is usually best.
   
6. Not transferring weight between legs. Failing to transfer weight from your back leg to your front leg makes you lose power and balance. This is detrimental when trying to learn more advanced attacking shots.
   

The Forehand Drive Can Help You More Than You Realize!

As many of us know, your performance on any given day varies. But a quality warm-up to get your eye in ensures you play the best you can.

And the forehand drive is the king of warming up.

Forehand drive counter-hitting is simple and controlled. It is the quickest and most efficient way to prepare you for the rest of your practice session.

If you go immediately into open play I can almost guarantee your amount of unforced errors will shoot up. This equals inadequate training.

The takeaway: begin with forehand drive counter-hitting and you’ll have a superior training session. It’s how I and almost all advanced players start.

Next Lessons

Beginners should try the forehand push and forehand smash.

Advanced players may want to give the forehand loop a crack.