The one-handed backhand is on the way to extinction
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Yeah this line was the key for me. But I think it is the opposite. They don't play hard and fast, they play hard and slow. This is why, I think, we do not have a lot of serve and volley players nowadays or one-handed backhands, not like the 90s. Because the baseliner has enough time to return your serves.
I watched the Wimbledon final and although Alcaraz went to the nets, it did not feel it is his style like a McEnroe or a Sampras. It felt like it was a strategy against Djokovic. Barely managed to hold on though.
Anyways, I stopped watching tennis a while ago (except the wimbledon finals), there is too much power and bullying involved, not enough grace and beauty. It feels like, I dare say, when field hockey decided to use astroturf instead of grass. In one stroke, all the flair players that relied on the unpredictability of grass were out and "hard running" and "precision scientific passing" won the day. Field Hockey stadiums are now almost always half-full, the beauty is gone.
Football and Rugby, I hope they stay the same.
EDIT: One other thing I noticed is that, in the 90s and early 00s, you had clay court specialists, hard court specialist and grass court specialists. The 4 grand slams were called the Vivaldi 4 seasons, they were that different. Winning all 4 was exceedingly tough. I think, now they are all the same, hard and slow. The variablility and unpredicatability is gone. You win 1, you can win them all.
Sounds a little like baseball in the late 90s…
Basically, the benefit of a homerun and the benefit of a strikeout were both better understood and so the balance of the game changed so those were more common outcomes.
"The gym" read as "steroids".
I wish people would stop lying about this ...
Doesn’t topspin reduce bounce height, and backspin increase it?
No, it's the opposite.
tennis: https://tennisone.tennisplayer.net/club/lessons/inen/bounce2...
pickleball: http://applecountrypickleball.blogspot.com/2015/12/spin.html
table tennis: https://www.allabouttabletennis.com/table-tennis-techniques-...
edit:
ok now I am very confused, as I can also find reports of the opposite effect, for example:
https://blog.tennisplaza.com/spin-effect-the-physics-behind-...
Can anyone explain why topspin makes a ball bounce lower (matching my experience and some online reports) and also higher (matching some reports in this thread and online)?
All else being equal, both can't be right. So is there some other variable at play, such as velocity, surface coefficient of friction, etc? Or is someone wrong?
Literally from that link: "A ball with topspin bounces higher than a ball with slice."
Oh, well, that site seems pretty sketchy anyway. It wants to force download multiple files as soon as I load it.
FWIW here's Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topspin#Competitive_utility "On most court surfaces, topspin also makes the ball bounce higher. As a result, it is often used on clay or "soft" court surfaces which have a naturally higher bounce in order to make the ball harder for the opponent to hit. An opponent with a one-handed backhand is especially vulnerable to a topspin shot because it is difficult to hit a high ball with a one-handed backhand."
[EDIT:] Reading that sketchy site more closely, it appears to be a trick question:
> So, if you've been paying attention, you might say, "The question at the beginning of this article was a ruse?" Not exactly. In theory, it is possible to hit two balls, one with topspin and one with slice, that arrive with the same height. But in reality, that won’t happen. You have to hit a slice low over the net, otherwise it will fly long. On the other hand, you want to hit a topspin-ball high over the net; otherwise it will land short or in the net.
What makes all the difference in tennis is that topspin and backspin shots go over the net at entirely different angles. You're not just hitting a flat shot with spin.
This is a common trope that gets thrown around in tennis. Anytime Federer struggled, analysts would have this great hot take, "We will never have 1 handed backhand mens grand slam champion ever again."
Then, Stan Wawrinka wins 3, Dominik Thiem wins 1, and Federer's dominance would continue..
The one handed backhand has always been less popular, which is why I think 'analysts' say its dying. But there are plenty of players crushing 1 handers on the tour right now and there will continue to be in the future.
It's the rackets -- partly because they're ultra-light, but mostly because of how ridiculously grippy the strings are, meaning you can put absurd spin on the ball.
Meaning, a ton more control from the baseline. This effectively renders net-play most of the time dangerous and impossible. You'll notice, no one goes to the net anymore. It's basically full-scale ping-pong now.
Hence, pickleball for regular people, because they'd like to do that.
It's not just regular people (try getting on the court with either Collin Johns or Anna Leigh Waters) but it is because they'd like to do that. Men's pro tennis got pretty stale during the period of the Big Three's dominance, and hasn't recovered yet (though there are signs of hope). Women's pro tennis was and is more interesting, but still shows signs of being dominated by a single style and not even the most interesting one to watch. A lot of people like a faster paced at-the-net game, with more speed variation and sharper angles instead of "hoo-ah" thwack "hoo-ah" thwack from the baseline. If something about how the game has developed is causing so many players to defect, and grippy strings are as good an explanation as any, then it seems like that should at least be acknowledged even if people are OK with it. It's not like tennis is the first sport to go through this, either accepting it or adopting rule/equipment changes to keep the game more appealing.
Except the current world number one, Alcaraz, who goes to the net a huge lot, including when he's returning serves (!). Or the future number one, Djokovic (guaranteed to be number one again by the 11th of September): in the Cincinatti final vs Alcaraz, Djokovic even saved a matchpoint by doing a serve and volley. Followed, the very next ball, by another serve and volley from Djokovic.
I mean: I see plenty of volleying from the two best players of the moment.
Whether we see it more or less on tour will be a reflection of coaching philosophy at the youth level. Sometimes a kid will show more affinity towards on or the other, or try to model a favorite pro…but most of the time they will go with what is taught.
I still play sometimes and will never let go of my 1H BH, there's some part of my child still thinking the movement is absolutely beautiful. Even more when sliding on a clay court.
"He was spotted by Dr. Peter Fischer, a pediatrician and tennis enthusiast, who coached Sampras until 1989. Fischer was responsible for converting Sampras's double-handed backhand to single-hand with the goal of being better prepared to win Wimbledon"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Sampras
Sampras really changed tennis, making baseline players almost obsolete, and I always rooted for Agassi because his game seemed so much more interesting, more about precision than raw power.
My how times change.
The backhand was IMO the weak part of Pete's game. Of course his serve was monstrous, overhead was monstrous, net game was good, court movement was off the charts, running forehand incredible. His running forehand provided a lot of cover for the backhand. And as a serve and volley player, he didn't need the backhand as much as other players.
Also, too bad that Dimitrov didn't peak higher, but he gave it a go, so there's that.
I got love for G, but you are right, I wish he peaked higher too. I always thought when he saw Thiem win the US Open he got motivated to try and get one himself. But now Alcaraz and a bunch of others that are just too strong. Definitely think he missed his window.
I never learned it; whenever I tried, I found the extra arm just feels like it's in the way. Not only that, but it's not available for helping to balance the body; it feels awkward, like running with your arms tucked to your body.
If you're not a tennis pro, dealing with the power play, there is no point to the two-handed backhand.
It also may be inapplicable to other racket or paddle sports. E.g. I think in badminton it might actually be considered inefficient to hold the racket with two hands.
By the way, you can cheaply obtain power in tennis with looser strings, at the cost of some directional control.
> there is no point to the two-handed backhand.
No offense, but by your own admission, this is pure ignorance. Learners should consult an experienced tennis instructor.
The best strokes for a player depend a lot on the individual's circumstances: age, physique, experience, talents, weaknesses, goals, etc. In fact, there are sometimes advantages to a two-handed forehand (usually not at the pro level, though of course Monica Seles was one of the all-time greats).
But to generalize your idiosyncratic experience to everyone and claim that there's no point to the two-handed backhand is absurd, obtuse, solipsistic.
Moreover, "I never learned it" suggests that you didn't spend a lot of time on it, which does imply ignorance.
So, taking that as the reason for wielding a two-handed backhand, I only posited that "If you're not a tennis pro, dealing with the power play, there is no point to the two-handed backhand" which makes sense in light of the article and doesn't "generalize my idiocyncratic experience to everyone". There is a condition attached in my statement which you omitted in your quote; that condition means it is not an absolute generalization.
"Ignorance" can only be applied to intellectual matters, not to a backhand; not spending time on a tennis backhand doesn't constitute "ignorance", especially if I know that it exists and what it is for.
"Solipsistic" means that I believe a world view in which only my consciousness is real. That is rather a huge leap from my statement about the two-handed backhand.
Please, get a grip.
That's your mistake. Here's another quote from the article: "The two-handed backhand is far more stable, he said, and the motion is shorter and simpler." There are a number of good reasons for amateur players to use a two-handed backhand, and that's indeed why countless amateur players do use a two-handed backhand. Are you seriously claiming that they're all wrong, and also all of the tennis instructors who teach them are wrong too?
It's really quite simple: many players, amateur and pro, hit the ball better and play better with a two-hander than with a one-hander. So why wouldn't you use a stroke that makes you play better?
> "Ignorance" can only be applied to intellectual matters, not to a backhand
Disagreed. There are difference kinds of knowledge, e.g., knowledge-that and knowledge-how.
> "Solipsistic" means that I believe a world view in which only my consciousness is real.
Check the dictionary. It also means "very self-centered", for example.
Mainly due to the repulsive personalities in competitive tennis; but liking it well enough as a recreational activity.
Ones designed to not only be low injury risk but also avoid situations where you don't win if you don't take risks.
And also designed so that all the stuff people think is really super cool to watch or do remains a viable strategy.
We've got accelerometers now. Why don't we put them in the sports equipment, detect specific movements, and assign points for stuff we think is beautiful?
You wouldn't have steroid issues if the balls were radar tracked and you got the most points for hitting at an exact speed.
You could make it so there was never a reason to do a high impact lunge towards something, you just wouldn't get any points for that if you trip the G sensor.
It would be like e-sports combined with dance, rather than just a celebration of who has the best body.
That way you don't effectively limit the game to one specific personality type who really likes to push their limits and maybe is willing to do roids.
I prefer to play with other players who haven't adopted "power supremacy". The games are simply more fun.
It reduces reach, which is a disadvantage, and most pro players have sufficient swing power on the forehand that the second hand would be superfluous.
Of course Monica Seles utilized the two-handed forehand to great effectiveness.
On the men's side, Fabrice Santoro was probably the most famous and successful two-hander.
It's just different angles and motions and muscles from the forehand and backhand. Physiologically, it's easier to generate pace from the forehand, especially using the rest of your body. On the backhand, the second hand can give you a little extra to make up for the "awkwardness" of the stroke.
I think the real answer is the switching cost between hands. Not enough reaction time to swap hands in the middle of a play.
The answer is that most people are dominant on one side, right-handed or left-handed, and their non-dominant side is much weaker, so a right-hander hitting a left hand "forehand" would be much worse. That's just how our brains work. :-)
The thing about baseball is, all hitting strokes are two-handed, so it's more analogous to the two-hander from both sides than the one-hander. Also, baseball hitters don't have to run to the ball. :-)
I would guess that the second hand in baseball helps a lot with stability and accuracy, because a baseball is so much harder than a tennis ball, and the barrel of the bat is so much smaller than the string surface of a tennis racquet.
However, a good coach will look for the dominance between hands. A good two-handed backend, especially the straighter top arm style (driven in line with the shoulders, the more common style in the mens game) is extremely dominant in the top arm. Kids who struggle coordinating that balance of power correctly and pull hard with their bottom arm often struggle to learn a reliable two-handed backend (I was one of them until i changed to a one-hander as a young adult). Those students i would have experiment with one-handed backends.
The problem is, so few coaches my age and younger have one-handed backends they don't know how to teach one.
(I was a tennis coach for 15 years before moving into tech)
It's a good thing this is on its way to extinction I reckon.
Is that really the case? At present, the world's #1 and #2 men's players are 6'1" and 6'2" respectively. And both well under 200 pounds. These are not giant musclemen by anybody's reckoning. Nadal and Federer were also both 6'1" and quite slim.
It seems to me that tennis is about agility, coordination, and reaction time -- and that great height and remarkable muscle bulk are somewhat disfavored.
The two-handed backhand is apparently a shorter and biomechanically more efficient movement than its single-handed equivalent, is all. And at the top levels of sport, with so much on the line, every small advantage counts.
Before I get too deep - I don't follow tennis. I'm just a sport nerd. I went and grabbed the 2007 and 2023 ATP men's ranking (cause that's whats on ESPN.com) and grabbed the heights of the top 10. Average height in 2007 was 71.8 inches (1.82m) and average height in 2023 was 74.5 inches (1.89m).
Djokovic (who is in top 3 in both lists... absolutely amazing) went from being tied for tallest in the top 10, to being tied for 4th tallest.
Height has risen over time, although the rise is far more pronounced for women than for men.
Perhaps most interesting though is the apparent decrease in height variance from the 1990s onwards. Before that, you had a mix of relatively tall and relatively short champions. But from 1990 onwards, which would seem to coincide with the decline of wooden rackets and the rise of the modern power game, you stopped seeing any champions below 180cm.
It's also worth considering that, even if height confers a significant advantage, its impact is limited by the normal distribution of height in the overall population. Assuming that A) you still need to have exceptional tennis playing ability to become a champion and B) exceptional tennis playing ability is very rare and not correlated with height, then you would expect rather more exceptional players of average height than exceptional players of significantly above average height.
So even if height provided an advantage with no meaningful upper limit, you still might not expect champions of 7'0" because there are just no players with such an unlikely combination of extreme height and extreme ability. You might instead expect a statistical sweet spot where the populations of players with both attributes is large enough that the overlap is where most champions sit.
Of course there's plenty of interest in amateur pickleball, but there's no evidence that amateur tennis is becoming more about strength and height.
Looks like there is pro pickle ball. Other pro athletes have been buying teams even
Not only is tennis far more athletic - almost like fencing with a ball - it sounds and looks so much better. In tennis, the audible whack at the point of contact with the ball is so satisfying. Pickleball sounds, by contrast, are squeaky and annoying.
Pickleball is more accessible to new and older players, though. And that counts for something.
1. change: "high-level" -> "the highest professional levels". I'd wager Venus could play well easily until her 60s if not longer. There are many levels in tennis. There is are a range of competitive club levels. How often and how intensely she plays is another question.
2. Change: "the" -> "one" (w.r.t. "Pickleball is the sport she can still play.)
Stepping back, in my view, some of the most interesting questions are psychological and personal. If you were to talk to a hundred former tennis pros about aging, what would they say? How much do they play? How does it feel? How do they shift their mindset as their bodies age? To what degree is tennis still fun for them?
Is this a backhanded remark? (pun intended) In conversation, generalization and cross-comparisons happen. Our brains do these things, and it makes for interesting discussion.
There's an implied quantitative model in this comment, but what is being claimed is rather unclear. Until that model gets specified, we could talk in circles about it.
Most would expect that strength matters, but how much? / And how much for what? For winning? For being competitive enough for it to be satisfying and fun? For overall participation levels? / I don't assume a linear effect across age, ability, nor skill. / And how much relative to other qualities? And how much are the factors intertwined?
Here on HN, like most forums, there is a write vs. read imbalance: "write once, read many". If you take a broad view, the implications are clear: it is better when writers put in the effort to be clear, particularly when asked.
There is a common conversational pattern:
(a) One person makes a comment which is somewhat vague.
(b) The next person reads, and despite the ambiguity, responds without asking clarification questions.
(c) Repeat.
Is it a surprise that such conversations have so many failure modes? Some include: (1) talking past each other; (2) not really learning; (3) not getting to know each other; (4) missing an opportunity to connect and build bridges.
I attempted to break the pattern by pointing out the ambiguity and asking clarification questions. This is the norm for sites like Stack Overflow, for good reason.
I have a hypothesis: the above dysfunctional pattern is not widely recognized here on HN. It isn't part of people's awareness; we fall into counterproductive conversational styles without recognizing it.
Sure, there are styles of debate where people try to score points. That's a zero-sum mentality; a waste of our collective effort.
I encourage us to reflect on this question: Given how much time people spend on HN, how many durable personal connections are formed?
> Wow, you are vastly, vastly overthinking this.
This is your opinion. It also comes across as judgmental. Remember: people think differently and to different depths.
I suspected you had more to say. There is no plausible way one could read your mind and go from what you wrote before to what you wrote here.
I'm here to learn and discuss. It doesn't help when people have a dismissive tone in response to questions.
FWIW, I enjoyed many of your comments in this thread. But this one wasn't persuasive to me. If you are curious why, I can explain, but at present, based on your above response, I'm reluctant.
On a somewhat related topic, fitness has taken over many sports. In field hockey, dribbling used to be a skill. India was unbeaten for decades in Olympics, winning 8-9 gold medals. The introduction of artificial turf ushered in the era of strength and fitness, and the Western nations mostly took over.
And why are players expected to remain "loyal" to a stroke?
This headline is oddly phrased.
It appears to be a misuse of language, possibly for clickbait purposes.
Let's say that this is not a "stroke" (for the lack of a better comparison) ask a player to switch from 1HB to 2HB it's more or less hard (I think it's harder) as change your swing as a Golf player.
Extinction: the act of making extinct or causing to be extinguished
How is this NOT an accurate use in this context? Seriously: did this perfectly valid, dictionary acceptable usage actually confuse you?
It's not like nobody is ever going to be able to hit a backhand tennis shot 1 handed ever again.
Therefore it's not extinction.
No one is teaching 1HB anymore. Along the way, I went to several tennis schools, and it's quite hard to find a coach that offers training as a 1HB, most of the time because the person is a 2HB himself or herself or does not know what it takes to train a 1HB.
The training itself is tougher. I had a coach who said that for every person that chose 1HB, he demanded at least 600 shots in the tennis wall in comparison with 200 of the 2HB, and with the game being as complex as it is in several other disciplines (footwork, volley, baseline, physical training), the least thing that you can do is to have almost 1 hour extra of training for a single shot.
With the game becoming slower, 1HB became a honeypot for lefty players who could explore it a lot and baseline players who would return every single stroke. When people used to play on the carpet, one average player serving an American twist or a flat on the line made it very hard for a 2BH to return due to the speed and anticipation needed. Today we have 2HB returning 150 MPH serves.
This is definitely true. You can get away with poorer technique and still have an ok-ish two-handed backhand because (and i'm heavily simplifying it here) you're using stronger muscles groups.
There are some exceptions. Some people such as myself are profoundly uncoordinated in their non dominant arm, and after playing with a two-handed backhand my entire childhood it still sucked. It took only a few months to go from never having hit a one-handed backend to it eclipsing my two-hander in reliability (context i was ~15 hours a week, so it was still a lot of time commitment). Would it have been better if i'd made the change as a child? Maybe it would have been a lot better, or maybe it would have been a lot worse because i wouldn't have had the physical development and/or the discipline to focus on the fundamentals of the technique at 12 years old versus the age i did change at 19.