Any decent 1hbh would wreck the WTA

T

thomasferrett

Hall of Fame
Most successful women on the WTA are tall, hit flat, have stiff 2-handed backhands, aren't great at slicing and have relatively poor lateral movement.

A one-handed backhand could angle these women off the court on a clay court/high bouncing hard court, forcing them reach uncomfortably with their 2hbh's OR force them to make bend down and make weak replies to a biting slice on a grass/low bouncing hard court.

There is a gap there waiting to be exploited. I just watched Suarez-Navarro destroy Svitolina with heavy topspin backhand angles - Svitolina was having to make so many extra steps out wide to hit her stiff and cramped-up 2hbh, leaving her forehand side wide open. Suarez-Navarro is literally the ONLY 1hbh player worth any sort of mention whatsoever on the WTA - and she's not even that good.

Bring back Henin or Graf and they would absolutely feast on these 1-dimensional flat hitting baseliners. If only tennis coaches had the backbone to sacrifice a little short term junior success in order to coach this forgotten stroke.
 
C

clarkey73

New User
Yes but no one is being coached with a 1hb any more as juniors to exploit the lack of lateral movement and flat shots straight to the middle of the court as we see in the WTA
 
70後

70後

Hall of Fame
thomasferrett said:
Bring back Henin or Graf and they would absolutely feast on these 1-dimensional flat hitting baseliners. If only tennis coaches had the backbone to sacrifice a little short term junior success in order to coach this forgotten stroke.
Click to expand...

Graf held the racquet with one hand on the backhand side, it is fair to say.

Navratilova, Mandlikova, Sukova, Novotna... those players had real 1hbhs.
 
J

JMR

Hall of Fame
I watched some of the Verdasco-Fritz match, and although neither of these players would be considered a master of tennis technique or a great all-rounder, both were perfectly competent at using the backhand slice to cope with wide shots or low balls, or just to break up the rally a bit. It's as if many WTA competitors are not fully trained tennis players. They don't know how to hit a basic shot that should be a tool available to any professional player. (Let's not get into the subject of volleys.)
 
M

merwy

G.O.A.T.
True that WTA have cramped up and stiff backhands. Goes for their forehands too, to a lesser extent. Don’t know why that is. Maybe a lack of upper body muscle mass that causes them to have to resort to powering through the ball more instead of just loosely swinging through it. Always felt that if somehow a WTA player came along with (technically) Djokovic or Fed like strokes they would own the whole tour. Henin deserves a special mention because she had beautiful ground strokes.
 
ohiostate124

ohiostate124

Professional
70後 said:
Graf did not have a 1hbh. Holding it with one hand doesn't make it a 1hbh.
Click to expand...

Hmm
4e155db4-e33d-4f95-8d1c-721cc2fc341d
 
Harry_Wild

Harry_Wild

G.O.A.T.
Love to see the current top 10 ranked WTA ladies shake again if Henin did come back for the second time! First round, top ten and you face Justine; what a nightmare!
 
Purplemonster

Purplemonster

Hall of Fame
thomasferrett said:
Most successful women on the WTA are tall, hit flat, have stiff 2-handed backhands, aren't great at slicing and have relatively poor lateral movement.

A one-handed backhand could angle these women off the court on a clay court/high bouncing hard court, forcing them reach uncomfortably with their 2hbh's OR force them to make bend down and make weak replies to a biting slice on a grass/low bouncing hard court.

There is a gap there waiting to be exploited. I just watched Suarez-Navarro destroy Svitolina with heavy topspin backhand angles - Svitolina was having to make so many extra steps out wide to hit her stiff and cramped-up 2hbh, leaving her forehand side wide open. Suarez-Navarro is literally the ONLY 1hbh player worth any sort of mention whatsoever on the WTA - and she's not even that good.

Bring back Henin or Graf and they would absolutely feast on these 1-dimensional flat hitting baseliners. If only tennis coaches had the backbone to sacrifice a little short term junior success in order to coach this forgotten stroke.
Click to expand...

"aren't great at slicing and have relatively poor lateral movement."

Their movement is terrible altogether. They should also use the drop shot more (come to think of it I have never seen it used) to exploit the issue they have with movement.
 
D

Deleted member 688153

Guest
StANDAA said:
Looks like Niculescu.

She really isn’t the female version of Federer, just someone who can’t hit a topspin forehand.
Click to expand...
An actual female Federer would totally dominate. Rarely losing matches.

It would bring some interest and popularity to the WTA too. A player with variety is needed.
 
MasturB

MasturB

Legend
heftylefty said:
The myth of Henin is becoming greater than the reality. Henin came out of retirement and didn't "wreck" the WTA. Why would an older Justine do better?
Click to expand...

If Henin wasn't like 5"2 she would have had a longer career. She maximized her body's capabilities and it destroyed her elbow.
 
Standaa

Standaa

G.O.A.T.
Firstservingman said:
An actual female Federer would totally dominate. Rarely losing matches.

It would bring some interest and popularity to the WTA too. A player with variety is needed.
Click to expand...

Suarez Navaro comes closest. Out of all the active female players she definitely has the nicest looking game on tour and is one of the few WTA players I would watch for their playing style. Not sure about the level of variety, but someone with such pretty looking strokes is definitely a rare treat to watch on WTA tour these days. And her BH doesn’t rely on flat powerful hitting.
 
MLRoy

MLRoy

Hall of Fame
Kasatkina's kicking a lot of assss because of her one-hander, her touch -- GREAT droppers, a killer forehand, and great serve. She beat The Woz from the baseline last night. One service point, she served wide w/ lots of slice to her forehand side & almost aced her. Out by a mm. Her second serve was a kick down the T to her backhand. Great versatility. Great volleying. Very old school. She plays like a super Kerry Melville Reid. This tourney's hers to win, Halep or not.
 
heftylefty

heftylefty

Hall of Fame
MasturB said:
If Henin wasn't like 5"2 she would have had a longer career. She maximized her body's capabilities and it destroyed her elbow.
Click to expand...
Henin is listed at 5'6, not 5'2. Martina Navratilova is only 2 inches taller than Henin and racked up 18 slams in the "Strongest Era" of the WTA (another ever growing myth).
 
C

ChrisRF

Legend
sportmac said:
There's something to that since Federer is toying with the entire ATP tour. And at 36 years old!
Click to expand...
Indeed, but just having a 1HBH doesn’t make a female player a "female Federer“. It could as well be a “female Gasquet” or a “female Dimitrov”.
 
sportmac

sportmac

Hall of Fame
thomasferrett said:
Most successful women on the WTA are tall, hit flat, have stiff 2-handed backhands, aren't great at slicing and have relatively poor lateral movement.

A one-handed backhand could angle these women off the court on a clay court/high bouncing hard court, forcing them reach uncomfortably with their 2hbh's OR force them to make bend down and make weak replies to a biting slice on a grass/low bouncing hard court.

There is a gap there waiting to be exploited. I just watched Suarez-Navarro destroy Svitolina with heavy topspin backhand angles - Svitolina was having to make so many extra steps out wide to hit her stiff and cramped-up 2hbh, leaving her forehand side wide open. Suarez-Navarro is literally the ONLY 1hbh player worth any sort of mention whatsoever on the WTA - and she's not even that good.

Bring back Henin or Graf and they would absolutely feast on these 1-dimensional flat hitting baseliners. If only tennis coaches had the backbone to sacrifice a little short term junior success in order to coach this forgotten stroke.
Click to expand...
You're basing your argument on one result. Svitolina and Suarez-Navarro are 3 all h2h. By your argument she should be dominating. Svitolina is 23 and one of Suarez-Navarro's victories came when Svitolina was 18.
Suarez-Navarro also had reached no. 6 so a little better than "not even that good".

I could take any single match and make all kinds of claims. I could make the claim that all anyone has to do to beat the top players is play like Rosol did at Wimbledon against Nadal or M. Zverev did against Murray at the AO.
I could use any one result and jump to all kinds of conclusions about exploiting gaps.

Sometimes a different look can be problematic, sometimes a player is just hot, sometimes one match is just one match.
 
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Harry_Wild

Harry_Wild

G.O.A.T.
heftylefty said:
The myth of Henin is becoming greater than the reality. Henin came out of retirement and didn't "wreck" the WTA. Why would an older Justine do better?
Click to expand...

Justine did pretty good before she hurt her arm. I think she was in top 20 and that is after 6 month back on the WTA tour! She had no point to start out with and was in a couple of finals and quarter round matches at the Prenier level and GS if I recall. Top ranked players were complaining to WTA officials to give her a ranking on the tournament draw sheet so they would not have play Justine in the first, second or thirds rounds of tournaments.
 
heftylefty

heftylefty

Hall of Fame
Harry_Wild said:
Justine did pretty good before she hurt her arm. I think she was in top 20 and that is after 6 month back on the WTA tour! She had no point to start out with and was in a couple of finals and quarter round matches at the Prenier level and GS if I recall. Top ranked players were complaining to WTA officials to give her a ranking on the tournament draw sheet so they would not have play Justine in the first, second or thirds rounds of tournaments.
Click to expand...
Doing "pretty good" is not "wrecking" the tour.
 
D

Dolgopolov85

G.O.A.T.
Purplemonster said:
"aren't great at slicing and have relatively poor lateral movement."

Their movement is terrible altogether. They should also use the drop shot more (come to think of it I have never seen it used) to exploit the issue they have with movement.
Click to expand...
They do but if they're hitting lower balls in general than the men, it's going to be harder to find opportunities to hit a drop shot. Harder still if you don't have a great slice.
 
D

Dolgopolov85

G.O.A.T.
thomasferrett said:
Most successful women on the WTA are tall, hit flat, have stiff 2-handed backhands, aren't great at slicing and have relatively poor lateral movement.

A one-handed backhand could angle these women off the court on a clay court/high bouncing hard court, forcing them reach uncomfortably with their 2hbh's OR force them to make bend down and make weak replies to a biting slice on a grass/low bouncing hard court.

There is a gap there waiting to be exploited. I just watched Suarez-Navarro destroy Svitolina with heavy topspin backhand angles - Svitolina was having to make so many extra steps out wide to hit her stiff and cramped-up 2hbh, leaving her forehand side wide open. Suarez-Navarro is literally the ONLY 1hbh player worth any sort of mention whatsoever on the WTA - and she's not even that good.

Bring back Henin or Graf and they would absolutely feast on these 1-dimensional flat hitting baseliners. If only tennis coaches had the backbone to sacrifice a little short term junior success in order to coach this forgotten stroke.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't it be easier for the women to just use more topspin on the forehand and get the ball to kick up. But that kinda has to go with a decent serve because extreme grips aren't that great against low balls. The ones you see with extreme grips like Cornet, Halep just hit loopy and not necessarily very heavy forehands. Sorta like Gaby back in the day. Don't think that would bother the women so much. Nothing that would um wreck the tour.
 
Man of steel

Man of steel

Hall of Fame
Firstservingman said:
An actual female Federer would totally dominate. Rarely losing matches.

It would bring some interest and popularity to the WTA too. A player with variety is needed.
Click to expand...
I thought we had a female federer in henin and last time i checked popularity in the wta actually started to go down when she started winning:cool:
 
Man of steel

Man of steel

Hall of Fame
Harry_Wild said:
Justine did pretty good before she hurt her arm. I think she was in top 20 and that is after 6 month back on the WTA tour! She had no point to start out with and was in a couple of finals and quarter round matches at the Prenier level and GS if I recall. Top ranked players were complaining to WTA officials to give her a ranking on the tournament draw sheet so they would not have play Justine in the first, second or thirds rounds of tournaments.
Click to expand...
It was an abysmal comeback. If you want to see a real comeback look at serena's entire career. Those are real comebacks
 
70後

70後

Hall of Fame
sportmac said:
You're basing your argument on one result. Svitolina and Suarez-Navarro are 3 all h2h. By your argument she should be dominating. Svitolina is 23 and one of Suarez-Navarro's victories came when Svitolina was 18.
Suarez-Navarro also had reached no. 6 so a little better than "not even that good".

I could take any single match and make all kinds of claims. I could make the claim that all anyone has to do to beat the top players is play like Rosol did at Wimbledon against Nadal or M. Zverev did against Murray at the AO.
I could use any one result and jump to all kinds of conclusions about exploiting gaps.

Sometimes a different look can be problematic, sometimes a player is just hot, sometimes one match is just one match.
Click to expand...

I don't think the OP is a WTA watcher, he likely saw one point by Carla between changing channels and immediately jumps right across the left field to a wild conclusion.
 
70後

70後

Hall of Fame
Sabatini had a great one handed backhand and the OP didn't bring that up.

Steffi Graf should have wished she had a 1hbh anything remotely like Carla.

So at one Agassi/Graf vs Henin/Goran exo, they were answering questions at the press event, they were talking about Henin's bh, in front of everybody Agassi unexpectedly says out of nowhere in a joking way : "I wish she had a backhand as good."

AA meant the missus. It was a slightly awkward moment that passed.
 
Last edited:
sportmac

sportmac

Hall of Fame
70後 said:
I don't think the OP is a WTA watcher, he likely saw one point by Carla between changing channels and immediately jumps right across the left field to a wild conclusion.
Click to expand...
Yep. All these posts about no slicing, no dropshots, no power, no movement... these people clearly are not even bothering to make an effort.

I just love the guy above who said he's never seen a dropshot used on the WTA. That's just frickin' priceless.

It's like they have their little soundbite all ready and they're going to repeat it ad nauseam as if they've had an original thought.
 
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D

Dolgopolov85

G.O.A.T.
70後 said:
Sabatini had a great one handed backhand and the OP didn't bring that up.

Steffi Graf should have wished she had a 1hbh anything remotely like Carla.

So at one Agassi/Graf vs Henin/Goran exo, they were answering questions at the press event, they were talking about Henin's bh, in front of everybody Agassi unexpectedly says out of nowhere in a joking way : "I wish she had a backhand as good."

AA meant the missus. It was a slightly awkward moment that passed.
Click to expand...
Has Graf ever hit a strong topspin backhand off a high ball like chest/shoulder height? Maybe she has but I don't remember.
 
Man of steel

Man of steel

Hall of Fame
People acting like federer dominated because of his 1hbh when that isn't the case at all. In fact if he had a 2hbh he probably wouldn't have lost so many matches to nadal in his prime. It was all the other aspects of his game that were all so good. Serve, mobility, variety and his great forehand. Although his backhand was great for a 1hbh, overall as a backhand it doesn't measure up to say djokovic or agassi. It remains in comparison to everything else the weakest part of his game
 
sportmac

sportmac

Hall of Fame
Man of steel said:
People acting like federer dominated because of his 1hbh when that isn't the case at all. In fact if he had a 2hbh he probably wouldn't have lost so many matches to nadal in his prime. It was all the other aspects of his game that were all so good. Serve, mobility, variety and his great forehand. Although his backhand was great for a 1hbh, overall as a backhand it doesn't measure up to say djokovic or agassi. It remains in comparison to everything else the weakest part of his game
Click to expand...
Here's an interesting analysis of Fed's backhand. It was written after and about the 2017 AO final and what part his backhand played.

Some good comparisons to other backhands (and you're right, Agassi's ruled the game for effectiveness based on the stats):

http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2017/01/30/the-federer-backhand-that-finally-beat-nadal/
 
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