lazy eye and 1hbh

I am a right-hander with 1hbh, but my right eye is "lazy eye". Basically I cannot focus on my right eye and I see everything blur with my left eye closed. I had really hard time to hit the 1hbh with close stance, cause I don't have that super flexible long neck like Guga.

My game got better recently and I start to play some strong 4.0 and 4.5 players in the new league. But now the ball are coming much faster and relentless to my left side, once I start to turn left and chase the fast ball I loose the site of the ball. I slice it 90% of the time with neutral and open stance. But I think maybe my slice will be much better if I can turn a bit closed. My return of serve will also benefit largely if I can stand closed.

Thinking of switch to 2hbh, will that solve the problem? I have tried a little it, but really suck at it. Plus I fall in love with the 1hbh for such a long time (Federer, Wawrinka, Haas, Dimitrov, Gasquet, Almagro...) even though it sucks as well in all kinds of situation..

Do you have the similar problem? Really need good suggestion to deal with it. Or should I just quit tennis(love it so so so much)? I never this a problem when I play any other sports.

Try an open stance 1 handed BH. I hit many of those, not because of any lazy eye, but because of a lazy body.

sureshs said:

Try an open stance 1 handed BH. I hit many of those, not because of any lazy eye, but because of a lazy body.

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Ugh, it's possible to hit an open stance one hander (I've hit quite a few with my lazy feet or on the run) but I find a more closed or neutral stance usually produces better results - IMHO.

OP- Try the two hander if an open stance gives you a better loo at the ball.

JRstriker12 said:

Ugh, it's possible to hit an open stance one hander (I've hit quite a few with my lazy feet or on the run) but I find a more closed or neutral stance usually produces better results - IMHO.

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Obviously.

I was just giving OP some options.

I found it very hard to go DTL with open stance, I hit automatically cross the court. And can you hit it hard with open stance?

sophistrock said:

I found it very hard to go DTL with open stance, I hit automatically cross the court. And can you hit it hard with open stance?

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It is more like semi-open

Between open and neutral? Sounds like you don't do it that often.

Do you think two handed back hand should solve my problem completely? My level will drop back to 3.0 - weak 3.5 instantly.

sophistrock said:

Between open and neutral? Sounds like you don't do it that often.

Do you think two handed back hand should solve my problem completely? My level will drop back to 3.0 - weak 3.5 instantly.

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You will have a problem regardless.

Best thing is to consult a doctor and find out if the lazy eye can be corrected by laser surgery or glasses.

It seems the real question here is how to protect a weak one HBH.

1) Learn a serve and volley game. Get to the net as much as possible. They can't hit to your backhand if you are at the net. Think J Mac- he didn't have a great 1 HBH,

2) Run around your BH as much as possible. Obvious, but you need to get into good shape and be fast to do it all the time.

3) play more doubles. I have seen some 4.0-4.5 players that can hide their mediocre BHs pretty well by playing dubs- that is assuming the rest of your game is up to snuff. Slicing your BH all the time is not necessarily bad in dubs because you are keeping the ball low.

?? I thought 2hbh don't need to stand as close as 1hbh.

None of the classes can fix it. Did some research on laser surgery as well, that door is closed too.

I have never bring this up to any of other players, they will have a permanent target if I tell them the truth. But one of the coach in Bahamas resort I met notice my problem in 5 minutes after hitting. He is also a right-hander with 1bhb, but with left side lazy eye. The guy is definitely around strong 4.5 and 5.0, hit gorgeous forehand, he hit the backhand hard, the ball could land anywhere, most time outside. He told me you just have to live with it.

goober said:

It seems the real question here is how to protect a weak one HBH.

1) Learn a serve and volley game. Get to the net as much as possible. They can't hit to your backhand if you are at the net. Think J Mac- he didn't have a great 1 HBH,

This make sense, but I live on baseline now. Will be out of my comfort zone for now. I can at least try it when facing players killing my backhand.

2) Run around your BH as much as possible. Obvious, but you need to get into good shape and be fast to do it all the time.

This is hard. Yes, I am doing this now. But I am talking about playing with 4.5 players. They hit good angle.

3) play more doubles. I have seen some 4.0-4.5 players that can hide their mediocre BHs pretty well by playing dubs- that is assuming the rest of your game is up to snuff. Slicing your BH all the time is not necessarily bad in dubs because you are keeping the ball low.

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Sorry I just love singles too much.

sophistrock said:

?? I thought 2hbh don't need to stand as close as 1hbh.

None of the classes can fix it. Did some research on laser surgery as well, that door is closed too.

I have never bring this up to any of other players, they will have a permanent target if I tell them the truth. But one of the coach in Bahamas resort I met notice my problem in 5 minutes after hitting. He is also a right-hander with 1bhb, but with left side lazy eye. The guy is definitely around strong 4.5 and 5.0, hit gorgeous forehand, he hit the backhand hard, the ball could land anywhere, most time outside. He told me you just have to live with it.

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I googled your condition, and it seems to be incurable.

Maybe standing further back and going for an open stance 1 hander and cheating towards the BH side are the only real mitigators, since you don't want to switch to a 2 hander.

Thanks for googling. I know it for a while, it's a pain, but I just have to live with it.

I am willing to switch to 2hbh as long as it can hind my eye problem and get me to another level.

Is it true people can hit a technically perfect 2hbh with open or neutral stance? At least the stance is not as rigid as 1hbh?

FWIW - Thought this was interesting, a neurosurgeon learned to see in 3D at age 48, she was born crossed eyed and stereo blind - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seeing-in-3-d

Maybe there are other treatment options you're not aware of, sounds like the opinion on what they can do might be changing:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3223381/

Anyway, all the best in your quest for a better back-hand.

sophistrock said:

Thanks for googling. I know it for a while, it's a pain, but I just have to live with it.

I am willing to switch to 2hbh as long as it can hind my eye problem and get me to another level.

Is it true people can hit a technically perfect 2hbh with open or neutral stance? At least the stance is not as rigid as 1hbh?

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Technically, 2 handed BH should be hit closed stance for power. But open stance is acceptable.

JRstriker12 said:

FWIW - Thought this was interesting, a neurosurgeon learned to see in 3D at age 48, she was born crossed eyed and stereo blind - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seeing-in-3-d

Maybe there are other treatment options you're not aware of, sounds like the opinion on what they can do might be changing:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3223381/

Anyway, all the best in your quest for a better back-hand.

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Thanks for the finding, JRStriker. Haven't see a eye doctor for a while. May need to see one soon.

you can develop semi open stance 1hbh but it requires good control of your body. your back needs to be strong enough to hold your shoulder in place so it doesn't pull to the side. load on the left foot and stay there. lift the shoulder up instead of pulling. learn to use wrist more to brush up the ball.

the overall effect may not be as good as conventional 1hbh, but if you practice enough to be able to reliably execute, it could work. just be extra disciplined about control.

sophistrock said:

I found it very hard to go DTL with open stance, I hit automatically cross the court. And can you hit it hard with open stance?

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yeah, very hard to rip it DTL with an open stance. might be able to block it back DTL, but at the level you're talking about, players will chase that down.

sophistrock said:

I am willing to switch to 2hbh as long as it can hind my eye problem and get me to another level.

Is it true people can hit a technically perfect 2hbh with open or neutral stance? At least the stance is not as rigid as 1hbh?

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It's mainly about the shoulders.

If you try to restrict your shoulder turn on the 1hbh you're likely to lose power and control, and/or over-rotate to compensate for the short backswing.

As a last-ditch effort (that you may as well try), you may try hitting without closing your shoulders, and instead swing from neutral to semi-open shoulders making contact the same way Wawrinka does (semi-open). But note that even Wawrinka closes his shoulders on the backswing. You'll probably have to muscle the ball more, also.


Sadly, moving to a 2hbh may be your best option. You can hit the 2hbh both open and neutral, though neutral would probably be preferred if you had the time to set up. Agassi seemed to like to hit neutral and he did it very well.

With a 2hbh, you won't have to close your shoulders as much as the 1hbh on the backswing. Also, you will be opening your shoulders up more on the forward swing and will be making contact more to the left of your body instead of your right. All this should help you get a better look at the incoming ball. Lastly, the later contact on the 2hbh will give you a split second more to adjust to misreads of the ball.

So even if you hit the 2hbh from a closed stance you're likely to get a better look with a 2hbh. And of course the two hands will allow you to further adjust to surprises.

You should probably start learning the 2hbh using a closed stance, then hit open and neutral shortly after. The easiest set up would probably be to keep your left arm straight and right arm bent. Be sure to transfer your weight fully forward on neutral/closed-stance shots, like you would with your 1hbh.

Sorry to hear about it! 2 cents you may appreciate...

First point I would make would be that there is something particularly scary about a cross court one hander with top spin into any rec level backhand. I find I am less error-prone (I don't try to clobber it) when I hit a high spinner. Build your play book around this shot and your opponent won't realize you don't go DTL. Work on quick footed inside out forehands to compensate. Focus wrong footing them on the ad court. At my level, a well hidden drop shot following a good spinner is just as good as a ripper down the line.

Second is try to start stretching. We carry a ton of tension in our neck and it kills flexibility. A few cm's may be all you need to feel comfortable.

Good luck!

My wife is an optometrist so I can ask her but I think one of the doctors that she works with in the hospital had surgery for one of the muscles on his eyes so that his would see straight. She also worked before going to school as a tech for a practice that specialized in vision therapy.

Here is some info:
http://info.thevisiontherapycenter....Amblyopia-Treatment-for-Adults-Is-It-Possible

Edit:
Just talked to her. It's VERY hard to fix and there are some cases that adults have had improvement. It depends on the cause. Go to doctor to check it out. It would probably be a optometrist who does vision therapy (or at least mention it). She said most ophthalmologist would say no fix because they really don't believe in it (therapy that is). She also it's not a guarantee and it takes a lot of time (and thus money) to try it. Again, just go to your eye doc and discuss it (probably not a lens crafter type location).

BevelDevil said:

It's mainly about the shoulders.

If you try to restrict your shoulder turn on the 1hbh you're likely to lose power and control, and/or over-rotate to compensate for the short backswing.

As a last-ditch effort (that you may as well try), you may try hitting without closing your shoulders, and instead swing from neutral to semi-open shoulders making contact the same way Wawrinka does (semi-open). But note that even Wawrinka closes his shoulders on the backswing. You'll probably have to muscle the ball more, also.


Sadly, moving to a 2hbh may be your best option. You can hit the 2hbh both open and neutral, though neutral would probably be preferred if you had the time to set up. Agassi seemed to like to hit neutral and he did it very well.

With a 2hbh, you won't have to close your shoulders as much as the 1hbh on the backswing. Also, you will be opening your shoulders up more on the forward swing and will be making contact more to the left of your body instead of your right. All this should help you get a better look at the incoming ball. Lastly, the later contact on the 2hbh will give you a split second more to adjust to misreads of the ball.

So even if you hit the 2hbh from a closed stance you're likely to get a better look with a 2hbh. And of course the two hands will allow you to further adjust to surprises.

You should probably start learning the 2hbh using a closed stance, then hit open and neutral shortly after. The easiest set up would probably be to keep your left arm straight and right arm bent. Be sure to transfer your weight fully forward on neutral/closed-stance shots, like you would with your 1hbh.

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I does copy Wawrinka a lot. He open up his body a lot when hitting. I open up too mostly because I lost track of the ball when turning and just want to regain the track of the ball by opening up earlier. It's OK to deal with slow or medium paced ball, but when the incoming ball a bit faster, I start to loose track of the ball right before the ball come into the hitting zone(that's the time I need turn further closed I guess). Basically I think turning the head for my 1hbh is relatively a big deal for me when the ball is faster. I would speculate a normal person will not have so much a problem which turning because the right eye can still track the ball, but I never know since I do see a lot of one-handers struggle with their backhand.


Good explanation for those advantage of 2hbh. Those points really make sense to me. It seems very promising to fix my problem. I just have to make a hard decision before I really do it... I have tried 2hbh a little bit, very awkward for me. Miss hit, hard to generate the power is the least to say. But it's good to block high and further ball. I think I have to bite the bullet one day...

Dimcorner said:

My wife is an optometrist so I can ask her but I think one of the doctors that she works with in the hospital had surgery for one of the muscles on his eyes so that his would see straight. She also worked before going to school as a tech for a practice that specialized in vision therapy.

Here is some info:
http://info.thevisiontherapycenter....Amblyopia-Treatment-for-Adults-Is-It-Possible

Edit:
Just talked to her. It's VERY hard to fix and there are some cases that adults have had improvement. It depends on the cause. Go to doctor to check it out. It would probably be a optometrist who does vision therapy (or at least mention it). She said most ophthalmologist would say no fix because they really don't believe in it (therapy that is). She also it's not a guarantee and it takes a lot of time (and thus money) to try it. Again, just go to your eye doc and discuss it (probably not a lens crafter type location).

Click to expand...

Thanks for checking this for me. One of the eye checking place recommend me with the therapy thing a couple years ago. As you said, they don't have a promise, just to help me work on it. And it will be a long procedure. I need to work on my right eye hard during that time. Now my right eye muscle are so week, just by only open right eye for 10 seconds to watch I already feel so sore and uncomfortable. I am afraid I will be much frustrated to go to the procedure than mi****ting my 1hbh LOL.

I'm sure there would be some other benefits if the therapy improves your vision. My wife did say thou that it really depends on the cause of the condition so best thing is to discuss with doc. As example she said the doctor that had the surgery had good vision in his eye, but when they straightened it out with surgery he was seeing double because his brain was used to the skew already. He had to do therapy for a few months to get that fixed. Also, I don't know how old you are, but the older you get the harder it becomes to re-train your brain.

getting to a milestone improvement on 1hbh

I still decided to give my 1hbh some good try before switching to 2hbh. So I watched a lot of Wawrinka's backhand slow motion following BevelDevil's suggestion and did a lot of shadow swing. Wawrinka open up a lot, that seem's the only motion I can imitate.

In the last 4.0 match, I played the highest ranked player. I gave it a real fight and hit out and hard a lot of times. At one moment, the guy hit a fast hard ball to my left side, instead of slicing it back as usual, I rushed there and hit a hard cross court topspin 1hbh. Magically it all connected, the shot was flat and screamed to the cross court. It totally surprised me and the opponent, it's not a winner, but I got a soft reply from the other side. That super encouraged me, so I hit more 1hbh topspin during the match and hit 3 dtl winners in the 1 hour timed match. Final score is 6 - 6.

I am so excited, I think I find the solution. I will stick to the 1hbh even with lazy eye!

I had a hitting lesson with a women college player yesterday just to practice the 1hbh. The girl is real good, she plays the #1 single and double for Eastern Michigan. I found I am grooving with the stroke more and more at the last half of my session.

Here is the key I found for the 1hbh:
1) super relax, especially upper body
2) hold the racket really loose, use only the index, middle finger and the thumb
3) weight smoothly transfer to the front foot with the shoulder facing the net back slightly facing the net(I still cannot face my back to the net too much due to the eye), butt cap to the ball, bath arms have some distance away from stomach. Put the racket at the slot using both hands, but mostly using my left hand, this way I can feel the time the ball better.
4) at the end of weight transfer, abruptly open up the hip and the shoulder, let both arms fly, right arm front out across my body to the right, left arm to the left behind. At the time of hitting, I am almost facing the net, still a little bit facing the side fence
5)With loose arm and hand, I feel my arm automatically supernate at the contact and the racket face come around quickly and closed a little bit right after hitting the ball to gave some top spin to the ball.
6)No hesitation, all weight transfer, uncoiling and flying of both arms happened in extremely short of time. Just hit it!

With all the success I experienced. I still have a lot of timing problem to handle the super fast ball or slow ball. But I think I am feeling the stroke the first time in my life! When hit it right, it's such a violent shot, much faster and violent then my forehand, even though I have been using my forehand to 95% of time when playing a match throughout my life. I felt it's so disguised a shot too, when I hit a dtl winner, my opponent stoned the, just like ACED!

I felt I am not muscling the ball, I used the big muscles, I also used the bones as lever

The main muscling involved are:
1) right front leg push up, this started the kinetic chain. But I am currently not standing straight up.
2) hip from close to open, this will in turn open the shoulder
3) upper back muscle when straightening the flying the left arm and right arm, the upper back and the flying behind left arm act as the lever to lever the right hitting arm and the racket
4) When hitting out, I also feel the slightly straightening up tension on the edge of the right side of the body. It's on edge of right hip, to edge of right lower back and edge of upper back. I don't fell I muscled with my arm and shoulder

I also started to feel I am using my body(bones) to lever in my serve, overhead, backhand slice, backhand volley. When levering correctly, it's a explosive and effortlless shot. Body part has to be moved in certain sequence and angles, body relaxed, no muscling. Interesting sensation.

Did you guys feel the levering feeling? I haven't found too much on my forehand, need some searching on that too. Now, a lot of times, I still feel I am muscling.

Someone said on this forum before: hit the ball with "human racket". Well said.

I also think my recently new found sensation for all the strokes is inspired by the youtube videos from MTM. Maybe the MTM way of teaching is not for beginners, it didn't show you detailed mechanic of stroke step by step, but it inspired the relaxed feeling of the stroke, it opened up my feeling to hit with body. I felt after trying to follow the instruction, my level of game and understanding of the stroke has leaped to another level. Of course it's not showing in my NTRP rating yet.