Table Tennis Forehand Drive
A controlled attacking stroke in table tennis, played on the forehand side with a compact swing and light topspin.
Overview
The forehand drive is a foundational table tennis stroke used to attack with control. The player rotates the waist and forearm to brush up and forward through the ball, adding a little topspin so the ball clears the net and drops onto the table.
A compact swing driven by body rotation, rather than a big arm movement, keeps the drive fast, accurate and easy to recover from.
How to do it
- 1Stand side-on with your knees slightly bent and bat ready.
- 2Rotate your waist back and take the bat back to about hip height.
- 3Swing forward by rotating your waist and forearm together.
- 4Contact the ball in front of you, brushing up and forward.
- 5Finish with the bat up toward your head and reset your stance.
Key points
- Rotate from the waist so the whole body drives the stroke.
- Contact the ball in front of your body as it rises off the bounce.
- Brush slightly up and forward to add light topspin.
Where it’s used
Sports that use table tennis forehand drive:
Related techniques
Spin in table tennis
Why table tennis is a spin sport before it is a speed sport — how topspin, backspin and sidespin change a ball's flight and its bounce off an opponent's bat.
Table tennis serve technique
How to serve legally and still create an advantage — generating spin within the rules, keeping the ball short, and why disguise must come from contact rather than concealment.
The loop and the block
Table tennis's primary attacking stroke and its primary counter — how a loop lifts backspin into topspin, and why a block uses the attacker's own pace against them.
How it connects
The meaning-bearing relationships that place Table Tennis Forehand Drive in the wider knowledge graph — each one with the reason it exists.
Frequently learned together
Taught side by side in the same stage of a learning path.
- Spin in table tennisBoth are taught in the “Build your technique” stage of the Table Tennis learning path.
- Table tennis serve techniqueBoth are taught in the “Build your technique” stage of the Table Tennis learning path.
- The loop and the blockBoth are taught in the “Build your technique” stage of the Table Tennis learning path.
- The push and the chopBoth are taught in the “Build your technique” stage of the Table Tennis learning path.
Explore across the knowledge base
Follow the threads that connect Table Tennis Forehand Drive to the rest of SocialSportHub.
Movement patterns
- RotationRotating the trunk to generate and transfer power through the body's kinetic chain, plus anti-rotation — resisting unwanted twist to keep the trunk stable.
- StrikeA ballistic, whole-body hitting action that channels ground-generated force through a proximal-to-distal kinetic chain to deliver momentum to a target via the hand, an implement or a body part at the moment of contact.
Skills
Equipment
Rules
- How a point is won in table tennisThe full list of ways a player scores — the returns that fail, the ball through the net, the double hit, the free-hand touch, and the moving-table rule most players never meet.
- The legal table tennis serveThe most-broken rule in table tennis, set out exactly — the open palm, the 16 cm toss, the no-hiding requirement, and what happens the first time an umpire is unsure.
Go deeper with Table Tennis Forehand Drive
Everywhere else on the platform that covers Table Tennis Forehand Drive — assembled from what actually references it, so nothing here is a dead end.
Learn it
Structured courses and paths on the platform that cover this directly.
Take it away
Open data and the whole-platform view of this subject.
How this page is maintained
- Content type
- Technique
- Provenance
- Tier A — evergreen educational
- Verified external sources
- 0
- Content updated
- 2026-09-12
Evergreen, first-party explanation — it makes no claim that needs an external source. How we handle sources and reviews.