The One Handed Backhand: Power and Control

[bottle]

He said he feels that his wrist gets curled a little then bends the other way as the rolling arm turns it over. Try messing with that and you will see the racket rise more sharply perhaps than ever in your whole life.

Now I would like to hear Arturo's or anybody's reaction to that.

[arturohernandez]

Thanks for the advice. I agree with both points. There is a famous coach in Russia whose name I won't look up again. She was a stickler for technique and she would have children shadow swing a bunch and then develop all the fundamentals very well.

Then they could compete.

So, yes, if one is lucky and is able to have great fundamentals taught at an early age, it makes life a lot easier as one gets older.

I was told by another coach to develop the slice backhand for forearm strength and for timing. Even as adults it is under appreciated.

She already understands this in a way. My daughter will run around her backhand and hit forehands.

So now I am wondering. If the two handed backhand is so prevalent and it is a very solid shot for juniors.

Would most juniors have to be forced to develop the forehand.

But a one hander is used to being defensive with a backhand. They have to look for a way out when playing a junior with a solid two hander.

Over time they will develop a better sense of how to hit an offensive forehand and how to setup the forehand.

So if the two hander is too good as a junior it might actually take away from the development of the forehand and the setup game.

It's funny that everyone talks about what a nice two hander Sampras had before he switched.

But I wonder if his setup game and forehand actually improved as a consequence.

Thanks again!

[don_budge]

My main question is what to do with my 12 year old daughter.

The answer is to development her game with the following paradigm. The backhand for the time being is to be played with solid defense and subtle tactical offense. The forehand is to be developed to be the aggressive aspect of her game at this point in time.

The video? What I like most is the title:

The One-hand Backhand: Power and Control

I ask the student the rhetorical question...what is power? The answer is control. What is control...I ask? Control is the combination of three elements...speed, spin and placement. On any given shot one of the elements has more emphasis than others. It is the subtle blending of the elements that creates real power. Of course speed in the modern professional game is the emphasis but it seems to me that there is more room for the subtle blending.

But as a junior it isn't speed alone that will win. Even in the professional game unforced errors play a huge factor in the determination of who wins and who loses. For a junior of your daughters age it is important to stress equally the elements of control. Perhaps you sacrifice some winning in this developmental stage but in the end it is well worth it.

Forget for the most part that a twelve year old is going to drive the ball with a one hand backhand...at least consistently. Teach this junior instead...the key to disarming a two-handed backhand opponent is to tactically neutralize the power aspect of the two hand backhand. This can be done by simply learning to hit an angled low slice crosscourt backhand to the two handed backhand. This is where you begin. Once you open the court up in this manner there are a number of follow up responses based on what the opponent does with their return.

Continue to practice driving the ball. Remember the one-hand backhand is really a two handed stroke. The left hand is helping...the left hand side of the body is working. It's rotating shoulders and torso getting behind the ball that is the key. Practice the Bjorn Borg backhand. I find it difficult at time to discern whether Borg was releasing the left hand from his racquet before, during or after contact. It is sort of a baseball swing up until that point.

This is how you will end up with a "powerful" one hand drive in the end. I remember watching Bjorn playing Harold Solomon at the U. S. Open way back when. Borg was smashing his backhand like a baseball bat from way behind the baseline. It was an amazing site at the time. Solomon was chasing and retrieving the whole time.

Getting the little princess to turn her shoulders to the ball on the slice is going to lay the foundation for the shoulder turn of the more "powerful" drive. First things first. Learn to drive the slice. Don't let the cart get before the horse. Don't let the hands and arms get ahead of the shoulders. Develop the slice...the all purpose slice. Drop shots and lobs. The whole gamut. The drive will come later...when the student is ready for it. This depends upon the student. It isn't so important actually. It is very important that the student learn to play tactically however...defense and neutralizing and patiently waiting to get the ball on the forehand to be aggressive. Think about the long term ramifications instead of immediate fixes. A twelve year old is not mature enough physically to drive the backhand in most cases. Be patient. Patience is a virtue arturohernandez. There is very little virtue left in this old world of ours.

Real power is gaining control over your opponent. If you control the ball...you control your opponent. You control the match. This can be accomplished in any number of ways. One of my favorites is to outthink him. Or her.

[bottle]

Very interesting! I love the video and agree with it. My only minor addition is the role of the hips in generating some of that power that then reverberates up to the hand. But that is minor and may be better for someone with a more advanced 1hbh.

My main question is what to do with my 12 year old daughter.

She wants to hit one handed. So I am not taking it away.

If I drop feed or hit low she will do exactly what the video states.

But I have the sense that younger children playing with normal balls will hit the 1hbh differently because they are not strong enough to hit everything in a classic way.

My main question is how the transition from this more open stanced and sometimes even back foot hitting transitions to a more forward and adult like backhand.

I have yet to see anything on how kids transition in learning the 1hbh.

We all know what adults should do.

But what about kids.

And what about handling those high bouncing balls with little strength.

I don't have the answer except that my son made the same transition and at 18 he has no trouble stepping into it and even hitting open stanced.

And he always gets his weight down and then up.

But when he was younger he had to hit it differently.

I think we as adults would do the same if we played tennis with racketballs.

Sorry to beat a dead horse but I just don't see any content out there on this topic.

Or maybe I am missing something.

No I agree about a lack of content, and not just on one handers for kids. Frankly, I don't think the adult instruction I see is that hot. I was looking through old emails-- the ones I ever printed out-- and there was a tip from a famous pro we probably all know. He said he feels that his wrist gets curled a little then bends the other way as the rolling arm turns it over. Try messing with that and you will see the racket rise more sharply perhaps than ever in your whole life. In my case I have now immediately wanted to reconfigure the arm rise to coincide with the vector of the wrist rise, if that makes sense. One ends up with a high high followthrough that looks like Chris Lewit's in THE TENNIS TECHNIQUE BIBLE, VOLUME ONE, or like that of the young Jimmy Arias before he changed it toward mediocrity and made it look and perform like that of everybody else.

In UNSTOPPABLE, by Maria Sharapova, she stresses that if you want to be any good in tennis, you need the luck of impeccable instruction right at the outset. It is this kind of tennis determinism that I have bucked my entire tennis life for better or maybe worse. Anyway, tennis is more fun for me through fiddling around with my strokes. If I couldn't do that I don't think I would play, sport for a lifetime or not, and would have found something else.

[arturohernandez]

Very interesting! I love the video and agree with it. My only minor addition is the role of the hips in generating some of that power that then reverberates up to the hand. But that is minor and may be better for someone with a more advanced 1hbh.

My main question is what to do with my 12 year old daughter.

She wants to hit one handed. So I am not taking it away.

If I drop feed or hit low she will do exactly what the video states.

But I have the sense that younger children playing with normal balls will hit the 1hbh differently because they are not strong enough to hit everything in a classic way.

My main question is how the transition from this more open stanced and sometimes even back foot hitting transitions to a more forward and adult like backhand.

I have yet to see anything on how kids transition in learning the 1hbh.

We all know what adults should do.

But what about kids.

And what about handling those high bouncing balls with little strength.

I don't have the answer except that my son made the same transition and at 18 he has no trouble stepping into it and even hitting open stanced.

And he always gets his weight down and then up.

But when he was younger he had to hit it differently.

I think we as adults would do the same if we played tennis with racketballs.

Sorry to beat a dead horse but I just don't see any content out there on this topic.

Or maybe I am missing something.

[jeffreycounts]

Let's get your thoughts on John Craig's article, "he One Handed Backhand: Power and Control"