This is pure BS. If the ball is too wide for 2HBH to hit, it is too wide for 1HBH to hit also and most players resort to slicing it back.
1HBH is hit in front of the body, quite far in front compared to 2HBH, and most of that "reach" is wasted by extending the arm forward vs. parallel to the baseline.
Optimally the 1hbh is hit more in front of the body - but that depends on your grip. But we are talking about extremely wide balls, which are not optimum for a 1hbh or a 2hbh. On very wide balls, the 2hbh will be forced to take a hand off the racket and block back - which they will have less feel in doing so because the 1hbh does this sort of motion all the time.
If we're talking about running drive backhands, the running 2hbh is more awkward than the running 1hbh because you have no off-arm to counter-balance your weight as you swing into it. I have seen Nadal pretty much fall over as he is hitting a running two-hander, and his running two-hander almost always has to be a point-finishing shot as he knows he will be falling after he hits it so can't recover, so he hits it very hard and flat - sometimes for spectacular winners.
Despite this, I can decide no winner for the wide backhand out of the 2hbh and 1hbh for running drive backhands, because on one hand you have Djokovic's crazy slide-two-handed backhands, and Federer's insane backhand flick passing shots. Both shots are highly idiosyncratic to each player, but both are, essentially the defensive strengths of each style of backhand taken to extreme levels of proficiency.
So you have seen one player on tour sacrificing control for power in a particular situation, and drew far-reaching conclusions from it (that 1HBH can be hit from the open stance, on the run, and remain consistently excellent?).
I have already discussed running backhands, and, yes, in general, the 1hbh is accepted to compromise control in favor of power. But then the 2hbh is commonly accepted to sacrifice power in favor of control. It is a trade-off.
Gasquet is a freak of nature, and his 100+mph backhand reflected the power of the incoming shot more than anything. If you played tennis yourself just a little bit, you would know that all 1HBH players try to step forward into the shot as there is no pronounced body rotation that helps, and not enough strength in that shoulder muscle.
I have no idea what point you're trying to make. Obviously all groundstrokes benefit from having your weight going forward into the shot - including forehands. Yet the torso is free to rotate and generate some forwards momentum whilst moving backwards in the 1hbh as Gasquet and Wawrinka prove, and they can both hit 100+ mph winners whilst leaning backwards. Oh, they're 'freaks of nature, are they?' I guess that renders my argument useless. The fact is that there are at least two styles of 1hbh - the conservative style that remains in a closed position, and the extreme-grip style that lets the torso freely rotate. Don't tar all 1hbh's with the same brush.
Logic fail. It shanks, breaks down under pressure, relies on perfect timing, uses more delicate and capricious body muscles, is poor on the run, forces you to turn away from the court (which slows recovery down), etc.
Who cares if in vacuum, a spherical stationary horse can produce more topspin from a 1HBH?
Look at all 2HBH-ders - they are all baseliners and win matches from the baseline. Look at all 1HBH-ders - they all have to utilize the "all-court" game, all run around their backhands whenever they have a chance, slice back half their backhands, and succumb to Nadal's topspin.
Nahh, you're failing here. Some people have stronger backs than they do chests. I am an example. I can't bench press for **** but I can strap 70kg of weight to my waist and bang out 5 chin ups with that. I can do a chin up with one arm. Guess which is my stronger shot? My backhand. Guess how many hands I use on it? One. I am willing to bet that Gasquet, Almagro, Berlocq and Wawrinka all have stronger backs than chests. Not everyone is built the same and it's narrow-minded to think that.
Talking of Berlocq and Almagro, they are also fairly one-dimensional baseliners but they have 1hbh's. They suck at volleys and slice and other 'all-court-y' things. Their 1hbh complements their baseline style, not detracts from it, because they have greater racket-head-speed and potential to generate clay-court specific heavy topspin than all the legions of 2hbhs, and they win their matches from the baseline - out-topspinning the 2hbh. Gasquet, in particular also wins a LOT of matches this way against baselining 2hbh players, but he also has all-court skills as another option.
Oh, let's see. I can count more than 8 clay-court events this season that were won by 2-handers, and zero won by a righty one-hander. So 1-handers are "doing better"? LOL
Now this is obnoxious. You don't want to look stupid by backing down, I get it. We know Nadal is the greatest clay courter that has ever lived, don't you? Well, of the five clay finals Nadal has participated in, four of them have been 1hbh's. It took the greatest clay court player of all time to stop Zeballos, Almagro, Wawrinka and Federer from winning clay court titles this year. The 1hbh is a rare species, I am not arguing that. There are not many 1hbh's out there on tour. And despite that, the few 1hbh's that are still out there have been beating the huge majority of the field of 2hbh's and making finals left right and center. And this is CLAY - the surface with that terrible high bounce that is meant to smother all of those delicate little 1hbh's. Maybe, just maybe the superior topspin potential of the 1hbh is not, in fact, working in a vacuum as you've suggested, but has found a home on a real, gritty, clay-court to provide high kicking bounce and hooking angles to give nightmares to all those 2hbh's?
Let's compare how the 1hbh did in the hardcourt swing of late February to March. Gulbis df. Vasselin at Delray beach, Nadal df. Del-Potro at Indian Wells, Murray df. Ferrer at Miami, Djokovic df. Berdych in Dubai... nope, I haven't seen a single 1hbh reach a final on these faster, lower-bouncing conditions. Instead, they're busy out-topspinning the 2hbh's in the clay season. Just admit you've been owned, why don't you?
The above argument is similar to my observation that there are probably 3% 1hbhs in the top 200, yet 33% 1hbh's in the top 15. That is proof right there that the 1hbh is very viable at the highest level of the sport, and I might add that (apart from Federer), those top players who do have 1hbh's are players for whom the backhand is a legitimate weapon, not a stay-in-the-rally type shot like the backhands of Tsonga, Nadal and Ferrer.
You're right the new generation is not being taught the 1hbh - but that is due to sheer cowardice and/or lack of imagination of the coaches - forcing everyone they ever meet to play in the same way. That is killing tennis. The 1hbh has proven how good it can be even in this modern topspin-monkey era, even (actually, especially) in the high-bouncing claycourt season. It actually makes sense for the 1hbh to be doing well now because it would allow really heavy topspin to be hit from both wings, not just the forehand. Anyway, the veterans have proven the utility of the shot by virtue of their ranking spots - it's just up to the coaches to take notice. Not that they will - but I hope to be proven wrong.
Wrong. Windshield wiper means a motion that resembles the trajectory of a winshield wiper - from 3 to 9 o'clock. There is no tennis term "windshield wiper backhand" in any credible book or article, because supination cannot be as extreme as pronation, and because the scapula bone prevents the arm from completing a true WW follow-through.
This is just semantics. My coach instructs what he himself calls a WW-finish 1hbh, and says it is WW finish because the strings point towards the net during the followthrough. This is what he defines as WW, and you're defining it differently, so whatever.
Says you? ) Well, thank you for you opinion, and I will stick to my fact: the only 500+ titles held by 1HBH players are Wimbledon, Halle and Cincy, all grass or fast HC.
Well, I bet that we will not see such a variety of 1hbh's reaching finals over the coming grass and HC seasons. I am happy to be proven wrong, though, cuz I love seeing the 1hbh succeed.
The way in which you and I differ is that I see the 1hbh as a legitimate weapon at the top level of the sport and you do not. But the ATP Top 15 supports me, not you. I am not anti-2hbh, I am merely pro-1hbh. You are anti-1hbh, so I consider my argument more reasonable than yours.
I see pluses and minuses for both.
2hbh is better for;
Returning serve, control, change of direction, hitting balls before they get too high (on the rise), forgiving contact point, sliding backhands on the run
1hbh is better for;
Hitting topspin, greater maximum power, hitting balls when they're already too high, flick backhands on the run. Many would also say that 1hbh has advantages in learning slice and volleys, but I do not because I consider them separate shots that need to be learned separately.