A student posed a question to me yesterday that I am not
sure I have a complete handle on. Perhaps some of you can
help. He is a tennis player and was wondering why a ball
hit with top spin bounces higher than a ball sliced over the
net with backspin. The ideas that came to my mind had to do
with Bernoulli causing the path of the ball to change and
therefore causing the vertical component of the balls
velocity and therefor the vertical component of the kinetic
energy to increase. I am not convinced that there is not
something significant I am not thinking of. Any guidance
would be appreciated.