Last week, Alexander Zverev finally lifted his first Grand Slam trophy at Roland Garros — and at the center of his game stood a backhand that commentators routinely call one of the best in tennis. Here's what most weekend players never stop to think about: that backhand wasn't a gift he was born with. It was built, one deliberate repetition at a time.

Now picture the shot you dread most. For an enormous number of club players, it lives on that same wing — specifically, the heavy, shoulder-high topspin ball that kicks up off the court and dares you to do something with it. You know exactly the one. It lands deep, jumps to your shoulder, and your normally clean backhand collapses into a floaty, defensive push that sits up like a gift for your opponent to put away.

If that's you, you're not untalented and you're not alone. You've simply never trained this shot on purpose. Almost no one has.

Why the high backhand wrecks so many players

The shoulder-high topspin ball is hard for reasons that have nothing to do with effort and everything to do with mechanics:

Your normal swing path stops working. A reliable groundstroke is built on a low-to-high swing — you brush up the back of the ball to generate your own topspin. But when the ball is already at shoulder height, there's no "low" to swing up from. You have to switch to a flatter, more across swing path that drives through the ball, and most players have never grooved that motion.

It's your least-practiced wing to begin with. The backhand is widely regarded as the least-rehearsed stroke in recreational tennis. Now take the least-practiced wing and add the most awkward contact height, and you've found the exact seam in your game that better opponents will target on purpose.

One-handers and two-handers face different problems. If you play a one-handed backhand, high balls strain your contact point and leverage — you're fighting the ball above your strike zone. If you play a two-hander, you can muscle it more easily, but you still need timing and a stable base to redirect that pace instead of just blocking it back. Either way, the answer is the same: structured reps until the motion becomes automatic.

The ball gives you almost no time. Heavy topspin arrives fast and bounces high, which compresses your preparation window. By the time you recognize it, the ball is already climbing toward your shoulder. You can't think your way through it in a match — you have to have done it a thousand times before.

Here's the problem: you can't really practice it

This is the part nobody talks about. Even when players know the high backhand is their weakness, fixing it is almost impossible through normal practice.

A hitting partner can't reliably feed you a deep, heavy, shoulder-high topspin ball — not once, let alone a hundred times in a row. Your regular doubles game certainly won't cooperate; no opponent is going to spend an afternoon kindly bouncing balls up to your weak side. And an hour with a coach is expensive, so you're not about to spend the whole lesson grinding a single shot.

So the weakness survives. It never gets fixed in practice, which means you end up taking the test live, in matches, every single time it shows up. That's the worst possible place to learn.

What you actually need is simple to describe and almost impossible to find: hundreds of identical kicking topspin balls, fed to the same spot, so you can experiment, adjust, and groove the motion until it holds up under pressure.

That's exactly the gap Tenniix was built to fill.

Three solo drills that finally fix the high backhand

Unlike traditional ball machines, Tenniix lets you recreate the exact ball that gives you trouble and repeat it as often as needed. With speeds up to 75 MPH, spin rates of ±5,000 RPM, and lobs reaching 8.5 meters, it can simulate everything from heavy topspin drives to high-kicking moonballs.

Drill 1 — Groove the contact point

In Training Mode, choose a high-arcing ball type such as Moonball, then crank up the topspin and dial the depth and speed so the ball bounces up toward your shoulder on your backhand side. Lock the placement to a single corner.

Now hit it. Again. And again. Because every feed lands in the same place with the same kick, you can stop guessing and start learning — finding your contact point out in front, shortening your backswing, and driving across the ball instead of pushing up at it. A basket of balls from a coach can't reproduce this consistency; Tenniix delivers it on every single feed.

Drill 2 — Compress your timing and take it on the rise

Once the motion feels solid, make it harder. Raise the feed frequency and push the depth so the balls come at you the way a heavy-topspin opponent actually plays — relentless, deep, and quick.

The goal here is to stop letting the ball climb to its peak before you swing. You'll learn to step in and take it on the rise, robbing the ball of its height and turning a defensive shot into a neutral or even aggressive one. This is the single biggest difference between players who fear the high backhand and players who shrug it off.

Drill 3 — Handle it on the move (Tenniix Pro)

In a real match, you're rarely set and waiting — you're recovering from the previous shot when the high ball arrives. With Tenniix Pro and its AI Vision Module, Smart Training Mode lets you set a custom Recovery Zone: the machine tracks your position and only feeds the next ball once you've moved back to base. Set the feed to that same shoulder-high topspin ball, and you're now training the high backhand after a recovery sprint — which is exactly how it shows up when it matters.

See the weakness turn into a weapon

The hardest part of fixing a flaw is knowing whether it's actually working. With Training Analytics, Tenniix records your sessions so you can track this shot specifically — your consistency, your improvement week over week, and where the gaps still are. Instead of "feeling" like your high backhand is getting better, you'll have the data to prove it. It turns a vague weakness into a clear, trackable project.

Your backhand can be built, too

Zverev's backhand took years of deliberate work to become a trophy-winning weapon. Yours won't take years — but it will take reps, the right reps, fed exactly where you need them.

The next time an opponent loads up a heavy topspin ball and sends it kicking toward your shoulder, you won't be the player flinching and floating it back. You'll be the one stepping in and driving it.

At just 18.7 lbs, Tenniix is light enough to carry to any court, holds over 100 balls, and turns your most-dreaded shot into hours of focused solo practice. Stop dodging your weakness in matches and start building it on the practice court.

Turn your weakest shot into a weapon — explore Tenniix today.