Taking the ball early is the only real answer to heavy topspin

Back up and meet a kicking ball at shoulder height, or step in and take it before it climbs; only one wins.

Topspin does its damage after the bounce. The ball dips in, hits the court, and then jumps upward and forward, and by the time it reaches its peak it is at or above the shoulder of an average player standing on the baseline.

That height is the problem. Hitting from up there is mechanically awkward: you cannot use the legs properly, you cannot drive through the ball, and your own margin over the net shrinks because you are already above it. So the natural instinct is to retreat, meet the ball as it falls back into a comfortable zone, and hit from four metres behind the baseline.

Which solves the height problem and creates a worse one. You have given yourself more time and given your opponent much more court to hit into, you are now hitting from further away so your angles are gone, and every ball you send back arrives slower because it has further to travel. You have agreed to defend for the rest of the point.

The alternative is to move forward and take the ball on the rise, in the window between the bounce and the peak, where it has not yet climbed. It is the hardest timing in tennis and it is the reason the players who do it well look like they are playing a different sport at a different speed. Contact happens earlier than feels right, the swing is more compact, and the ball's own upward momentum does some of the work for you.

It is also a positional decision rather than a shot. You are trading reaction time for court position, permanently, for the whole rally, and if your read is wrong you will be jammed and look foolish.

Which is exactly why it is rarely coached below a high level. It has a failure mode that is visible and embarrassing, and retreating has a failure mode that just looks like losing slowly.

The half-volley groundstroke, hit almost off the bounce from around the baseline, is the extreme version and is the single clearest marker of a player who has decided not to be pushed back.

Watch where somebody stands to receive a heavy ball and you will know within two rallies whether they intend to win the point or merely to keep it going.