Borg's Backhand

[lukman41985]

I've been in the process of transitioning from a one-hander to a two-hander. I had a lot of problems at first because no matter how hard I tried, my right arm wanted to dominate the stroke. However, looking at Borg's backhand has made my two-hander a much better shot. What I've focused on in Borg's backhand is his simple backswing, the position of his right arm against his chest, turning through the shot, a contact point at about the right hip, contact with the left elbow at about the left hip, and the double bend in Borg's left arm. Borg's arms seem to be very passive in his backhand. He just lets the ball connect to his racquet, and using body rotation and, what I can best term an upward and outward "pushing of his body", he effortlessly strokes the ball.

I'll go out on a limb and say that Borg's two-hander might actually be a good model for one-handers. I think it was Scott Murphy, in his article on the one-handed backhand, who said that the best one-handers keep the right arm close to the chest, just like Borg does in his two-hander. However, the one-hander uses his/her left arm as a counter balance whereas the two-hander has the left arm on the racquet for support. But the left arm, I would argue, is fairly passive--atleast in Borg's stroke.

For all of you out there who are struggling with your two-hander or who are thinking about transitioning to the two-hander, look no further than Borg as a model. Personally, I feel his mechanics are the simplest and most easy to model. I tried to model Agassi, but his straight arms at contact and that move he has in which he cocks the wrists down under the ball--this was just too complex for me.

[johnyandell]

I wish we had a lot more footage of him. I looked at all the ones we have. I remember him in his prime hitting much more with his front arm. Although his rear arm is bent in the windup it appears to be straightening out at contact or sometimes just after. Others though the left arm is doing a little more right at contact and the arms are in the flex/flex. I certainly wouldn't describe his arms as passive.

See this one for flex/flex:
http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...enterFront.mov

I think that if you are feeling your front arm want to work you should make sure you use it. That's often true of men that have had one-handers. But I have no idea what your relative arm positions look like. One thing though, don't confuse arm rotation with the position of arms relative to straight or bent. Forget about trying to "cock" your wrists like Agassi--that's not what is happening anyway--it's advanced arm rotation.

I guess the bottom line is that you are floundering around a bit on the two-hander, going from player to player looking for models. Why don't you send in some video? I really don't have a clear picture of what you are doing. I think it's even possible that you should stick with the one-hander. Sometimes people
think they need to make a radical change when what they really need is some smaller technique correction.