backhand

Justine Henin has one of the best one-handed backhands in today's tennis

The backhand in tennis is a stroke hit by swinging the racquet away from one's body in the direction of where the player wants the ball to go. For a right-handed player, a backhand begins on the left side of his body, continues across his body as contact is made with the ball, and ends on the right side of his body. It can be either a one-handed or a two-handed stroke.

The backhand is generally considered more difficult to master than the forehand. Because the dominant hand "pulls" into the shot, instead of pushing, the backhand generally lacks the power and consistency of a forehand. Beginner and club-level players often have difficulty hitting a backhand and junior players often have trouble because they are not strong enough to hit it. Even many advanced players have a significantly better forehand than backhand, and there are many strategies based on exploiting this weakness.

Grips

Main article: Grip (tennis)

For most of the 20th Century the backhand was hit with one hand, using either an eastern or a continental grip. The first notable players to use two hands were the 1930s Australians Vivian McGrath and John Bromwich. Beginning with Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert in the 1970s, many players began to use a two-handed grip for the backhand. Pete Sampras and Stefan Edberg notably switched from the two-handed to the one-handed backhand late in their development.

With some exceptions, one-handed backhand players move to the net with greater ease than two-handed players because the shot permits greater forward momentum and has greater similarities in muscle memory when hitting backhand volleys and backhand groundstrokes. They also do not develop a common two-handed backhand habit of playing volleys with two hands. However, one-handed backhand players with less extreme grips are prone to slicing or chipping returns when shots bounce too high over their strike zones; and skilled opponents often play into that weakness.

The two-handed backhand tends to be more stable and accurate but less powerful. Two-handed backhanded players are much more steady from the baseline at lower levels.Two-handed backhands do not offer the same reach that one-handed backhands offer, so two-handed players have to be sharper in their movement when going after hard to reach backhands.

Great backhands

The player long considered to have had the best backhand of all time, amateur and professional champion Don Budge, had a very powerful one-handed stroke in the 1930s and '40s that imparted topspin onto the ball. He used an Eastern grip, and some pictures show his thumb extended along the side of the racquet for greater support. Ken Rosewall, another amateur and professional champion noted for his one-handed backhand, also used a continental grip to hit a deadly accurate slice backhand with underspin throughout the 1950s and '60s.

In his 1979 autobiography Jack Kramer devotes a page to the best tennis strokes he had ever seen. He writes: "BACKHAND—Budge was best, with Kovacs, Rosewall and Connors in the next rank (although, as I've said, Connors' 'backhand' is really a two-handed forehand). Just in passing, the strangest competitive stroke was the backhand that belonged to Budge Patty. It was a weak shot, a little chip. But suddenly on match point, Patty had a fine, firm backhand. He was a helluva match player."

Other professional players noted for their exceptional backhand:

Andy Murray in a backhand stroke.

• Jimmy Connors
• Ivan Lendl
• Stefan Edberg
• Nikolay Davydenko
• Rafael Nadal
• Novak Đoković
• Marcos Baghdatis
• Andre Agassi
• Yevgeny Kafelnikov
• Marat Safin
• Gustavo Kuerten
• Chris Evert
• Monica Seles
• Richard Gasquet
• Justine Henin
• Tommy Haas
• Roger Federer
• David Nalbandian
• Venus Williams
• Serena Williams
• Lindsay Davenport
• Amelie Mauresmo
• Maria Sharapova
• Pete Sampras
• Boris Becker
• Andrei Pavel
• Gastón Gaudio
• John McEnroe
• Björn Borg
• Jelena Janković

External links

• Video: Tips for a good backhand
• Tennis Training Aids: Tip on Backhands

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