The backhand is one of the two basic groundstrokes in tennis and can be played both with one or two hands, with topspin or backspin. Despite its variety of derivatives, the scientific literature describing the backhand groundstroke production has not been reviewed as extensively as with the serve and the forehand. The purpose of this article is to review the research describing the mechanics of one and two-handed backhands, with a critical focus on its application to clinicians and coaches. One hundred and thirty four articles satisfied a key word search (tennis, backhand) in relevant databases and manual search, with only 61 of those articles considered directly relevant to our review. The consensus of this research supports major differences between both the one- and two-handed strokes, chiefly about their respective contributions of trunk rotation and the role of the non-dominant upper extremity. Two-handed backhand strokes rely more on trunk rotation for the generation of racquet velocity, while the one-handed backhands utilize segmental rotation
Few things in tennis get people waxing poetic more than a well-struck one-handed backhand. The cocked wrist and huge shoulder turn load the racquet tip high into the air before dropping into a long and unwinding arc that produces unrivaled spin and power and makes it the obvious aesthetic choice for many aspiring players. Observe this 103mph steamer from Richard Gasquet:
A popular 2018 graph from Twitter user Vestige du jour clearly shows a general pattern of spin dominance for the one-handed players, with Gasquet firmly on top:
And yet, at the professional level the one-hander has been on the decline for decades. In any given year roughly 10% of players continue to give it life support in the top 100. The current crop includes Tsitsipas, Musetti, Dimitrov, Evans, Shapovalov, Gasquet, Lajovic, Cecchinato, O’Connell, Altmaier, Wawrinka, and Thiem. Why it has declined I’ll get into later in the piece.
In a recent post, a Twitter user named “The Big Three” posted a thread (found here) arguing that Federer’s backhand struggled against Nadal more tha
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OHBH lack of power (video)
Pctopcool said:
Hi there,
I'm a beginner with OHBH. I chose one hand since it is more natural to me, but sometimes I feel lack of power comparing with my forehand and THBH. I can sometimes hit the ball relatively deep, but the speed is still lacking and the ball doesn't have much spin. I posted a video of my OHBH with hand feed, hoping I can get some advice to improve the power and any other aspects that you noticed. Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
You can accelerate your upper arm forward in two ways: 1) using your shoulder muscles to move your upper arm forward. The upper arm separates from the chest. That is what you are doing. There may or may not also be uppermost body turn. 2) using the uppermost body (see the line between the shoulders) to turn and press on the upper arm for acceleration. This uses body muscles including the legs turning the hips and the trunk muscles turning the spine. If you have back issues don't try this without knowing you are safe to twist your trunk. Note - later on before impact you do use the shoulder mu