People who grew up watching them aren't old. I know because I grew up watching Rod Laver, John Newcombe and Stan Smith. When I grew up, if you were a boy and played with a two-handed backhand, all the other kids would laugh at you and say "look at the little girl" because only little girls hit a backhand with two hands. And if you said "maybe this 15 ounce chunk of wood is too heavy" or "maybe the 4 5/8 grip is a little big," you'd have gotten the same reaction. Something like "son, Pancho Gonzales wouldn't have let his face be put on the racket unless it was a good one, so stop whining, grab that chunk of wood with a continental grip and start hitting the ball hard and flat." Then Jimmy Connnors came along with his two-handed backhand. I'm sure that one of the kids around Belleville said "Jimmy is a little girl" but, after that kid was found unconscious in an alley somewhere with fragments of racket imbedded in his skull, no one ever said it again.
I still hit with a one-handed backhand. I realize that there's absolutely no advantage to using one, but it's what I grew up using and none of you modern sissy kids are ever gonna convince me to change.
Probably not as my wise is strictly 2HBH.
In my area, it's more like 90% who use 1HBH. It's because the 1HBH is more versatile and has more reach. Older players can't get to the ball as fast so it's easier to get the ball back with a 1HBH than with a 2HBH. Also, most leagues are doubles only and more recreational players play doubles than singles and it's more natural to play doubles with a 1HBH than a 2HBH because of one-handed backhand volleys and serving and volleying.
I also think it may be because the 1HBH requires more shoulder strength, which more men have than women do.
I agree. I find it easier to crank a 1HBH and hit the ball cleanly in the middle of the sweetspot with pace than to do the same with a forehand. I think it has to do with hitting the ball much further out front on a 1HBH where you can see the ball better than on a forehand where the contact point is more to the side of your body than way out in front.
So true.
It's physically impossible to hit a forehand way out in front of your body like on a 1HBH because on a 1HBH, my right shoulder and arm are facing the net, whereas on a forehand my left shoulder and arm are facing the net (I'm right-handed). On a 1HBH, you swing away from your body with the contact point way out in front of your out-stretched hitting arm. On a forehand, you have to swing across you body and your hitting arm isn't long enough for you to hit the ball as far out in front as on a 1HBH.
Doesn't your racquet arm still swing across your body even with an open stance forehand (assuming you don't hit reverse forehands like Nadal)?
LOL
I don't think so.
Doesn't your racquet arm still swing across your body even with an open stance forehand (assuming you don't hit reverse forehands like Nadal)?
You can't hit the ball way out in front on a forehand because your arm isn't long enough regardless if it's open stance or not. The contact point on my 1HBH is directly in front of my body where I can actually see the ball hit my stringbed through my stringbed. The contact point on a forehand is not going to be directly in front of your body, whether open stance or closed stance, it's going to be more towards the side of your body. If you try to make your contact directly in front of your body on a forehand, like on a 1HBH, the ball won't cross the net because it'll hit the side fence to the left side of you.
Here's the greatest forehand of all time. Hmmm...looks like he's hitting the ball more to the side of him than directly out in front of his chest:
Sounds like you need to find better players to play with then. ;-)
The thing is, most pros prefer to hit forehands over one-handed backhands so if the ball was coming directly at them, they have such good footwork that they can get around the ball and hit the forehand to the side of their bodies. But they CAN hit their 1HBH's directly in front of their bodies if they wanted to. It's just simple bio-mechanics of the stroke.
No, my point is that a one-handed backhand's contact point is way out in the front of the body where if you take your racquet hand and stick it straight out towards the net, the contact point is right before then. Contrast that with a forehand where you have to wait for the ball to get closer to the back of the court so that it's closer to the side of you than directly in front of you before you make contact. Watch pros like Federer. Their contact points for their forehands and 1HBH's are completely different.
It depends on how good your slice is. Some people can hit such great slices that the ball barely bounces up from the ground at all. Those are very hard to deal with and very hard to get under and back up over the net aggressively. I have trouble with them even with my eastern grips and 1HBH, I can't imagine how much more difficult it would be for players with western grips and 2HBH's.
