Kite, thanks for the detailed and well written post about hitting a powerful 1h BH.
I can consistently direct my 1h BH at around 70-80mph given that I am playing against a player who hits groundstrokes at or near that range. Usually I can hit the BH with a little more speed than the incoming ball. But against players that hit with no pace and on slow courts that speed drops quite noticeably. Speed also becomes inconsistent hittng against no pace, with a very fast BH only coming occasionally for me.
From your description it sounds like my BH grip is similar to yours. I took mental notes about things I can improve and implement, while reading your posts. I took that stuff to the slow courts yesterday, and my backhand speed significantly improved and stayed fairly consistent. Pretty good considering it was all practiced during matches against doubles opponents who vary their shots between deep with fair pace to short low trajectory flat shots with little bounce. The opposing team complimented my backhand several times, as well as my serve. I had been reconstructing my serve for the past 2 months and your post in PV's thread was great timing. Easily held all in service games yesterday except 1, when I tired out towards the end of two sets. Usually only gave up 0-1 points per service game. Can't wait to see what this BH can turn into with some solid practice.
Have you got any other similar posts regarding other parts of the game?
Nice to see you got some value out of it. Concentrate on speeding up your core after you have coiled extremely. Especially on no pace balls that are currently jamming your timing. You are letting the slow balls slow down your own coil/core speed and jamming yourself, which is what the pushers count on with the hitters. We are talking about extremes here, to set an example, and to break you of your current habits that rob you of your greatest enjoyment: actual improvement. Footwork first, coil early, relax the upper body, yet the lower body is Samurai tight. Focus on rotating your core faster than you ever have, and "drag" the bh behind the opening hip, like you would throw a frisbee really far, really fast, you have to coil, and then open the hip first, or if you threw a back handed karate strike. Same coil, same open, same result: there are lots of black belts who hit like girls due to no speed, no coil, and form only. That has been your game until now: form only, with no intended weapon. I do have some more things:
How to hit the One Handed Richard Gasquet Back Hand shot:
INVERT AND SUPINATE (FOR RIGHTIES AND PRONATE FOR LEFTIES: CLOCKWISE VS. COUNTER CLOCKWISE.)
Invert: One thing all the top 1hbh players have in common, is that they invert the stick, just like many of the top fh hitters do, to produce more kinetic potential, more voltage if you will, more stored pressure into the shot. What do we mean by “stored pressure or stored shot voltage?” When Richard Gasquet has a sitter, or sometimes even a neutral shot, he points the stick straight up, and straightens his hitting arm towards the sky, arm barring the shot. Like a water fall, up high, which has stored pressure and voltage in the higher water, waiting to fall and smash into the pool below!
What do we mean by arm barring? The hitting arm forms a solid two by four line, with a straight elbow, up towards the sky. This is not a rigid prep, but a fluid prep. At contact point, in front of the hitting shoulder, the arm is also arm barred, by the best 1hbh hitters, such as Henin, all of 130lbs, who can hit the 1hbh 100mph! Gasquet is capable of hitting 120mph 1hbh, almost as fast as he can serve the ball! How is this even possible?
After the arm is barred towards the sky, the stick drops precipitously, into a bent elbow position, with the hitting surface of the string bed pointed not downwards, but upwards, towards the sky. So he skies the prep, with a stored pressurized arm bar, and then drops into a cocked bent elbow skied position, into the water fall pool, with the stick facing forward of the hitting shoulder.
Pronate: In anatomy, pronation is a rotational movement of the forearm at the radioulnar joint, or of the foot at the subtalar and talocalcaneonavicular joints.[1][2] For the forearm, when standing in the anatomical position, pronation will move the palm of the hand from an anterior-facing position to a posterior-facing position without an associated movement at the shoulder (glenohumeral joint). This corresponds to a counterclockwise twist for the right forearm and a clockwise twist for the left (when viewed superiorly). For the foot, pronation will cause the sole of the foot to face more laterally than when standing in the anatomical position. Pronation is the opposite of supination. Then, comes a very fast U turn, with the hips moving in conjunction just as you would throw a Frisbee, or a spinning back hand martial arts strike. The hips add to the speed and acceleration of the shot, by opening up before, and dragging behind, the stick. Then comes the pronation of the shot, or the turn over of the wrist, very fast, in a wind shield wiper motion fully out to the right of the body, with an extremely fast follow through, and a very fast and full weight transfer, out towards the target. Think Reggie Jackson getting ready to hit a home run. He inverts the bat towards the pitcher, and then the ball comes into the strike zone, and he u turns into a very fast supination.
Intention: The intention to swing freely, and kill the ball, has to be there in the hitting wrist into the prep, the coil, the weight transfer, and the hip open-up, and finally, to supination of the shot. Without true intention to kill the ball, we cannot dev. smoothness and relaxation. Imagine what it would be like to crack a whip, without smoothness and relaxation, while stiff and unable to snap your wrist or put any body into the whip snap. That is how most of us are hitting our 1hbh, stiffly, with no confidence, or smoothness, or relaxation, or true intention to kill the ball.
Smoothness: What do we mean by smoothness? Imagine a samurai slicing through an opponents body with a sword, with full body weight, and weight transfer, with a 1hbh strike. This cannot be done without smoothness of upper body movement. The best samurai ever to fight and live, was Myamoto Musashi, who wrote a book about samurai fighting. He was a samurai warrior and famous for his one on one samurai duels to the death, and distinctive two handed, two sworded fighting style. Musashi became famous by killing and maiming numerous opponents, even from a very young age. He was the founder of the Hyōhō Niten Ichi-ryū or Niten-ryū style of swordsmanship and the author of The Book of Five Rings (五輪書 Go Rin No Sho?), a book on strategy, tactics, and philosophy that is still studied, and required reading in many business tactics courses. He retired undefeated, at the age of 29, approx. 61-0, in samurai battles.
He stressed the fighting stance: loose upper body, and spring steel lower body, weight on the balls of the feet, bent knees, chest slightly forward: He advocated walking around in this stance in every waking moment. It is the stance of the volleyer.
He said: “In every match; it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things. It is important in each match to know the impediments' thrust and not to be distracted by insignificant movements of each obstacle, or of the opponents sword and tactics and movements. You must study this; as your life depends on it. The gaze is the same for single-scale matches and for large-scale matches. See each situation without moving your gaze side to side.”
I take this side to side gaze comment to mean: do not let your gaze go into the fog zone. The fog zone is where you are not watching the ball, or the opponent, or the opponent’s stick, or anything in particular, but have lost focus, due to stiffness of concentration, and stiffness of vision, and stiffness of intention, and stiffness of bodily movement and function, due to the intensity of the battle and the extremely physical direction of the point.
Hand speed is spoken about over and over, yet no one talks about vison speed, that is; the ability to concentrate on the ball to the contact, with our eyes smoothly, and to smoothly transfer your full force and weight without trying to in a muscled up hit it hard way, and out to the opponents stick.
If you watch the opponents stick, you will pick up cues faster than if you stay fogged. So it is the smoothness we are after.
Think Gustavo Kuerten, the drunken monkey himself, and how loosy/goosy he was in between points, smiling, wiggling and jiggling his upper body, in such a happy and funny way, and how devastatingly fluid and powerful his 1hbh was! The drunken monkey had the most deadly 1hbh of his entire era.
Stick: It’s amazing to me how many people don’t use the stick most suited to their style. How many serve/volleyers have you seen with babolats? Or baseline bashers with very light sticks? If you are a basher, you need polarized head heavy plow through. If you are a serve/volleyer you need touch and control over power, a depolarized set up, with weight at 3 and 9 o’clock, and a head light frame, for more maneuverability at the net, and more finesse over brute force, and accuracy and deft touch over the ability to grind down to a nub.
String: The same goes for string. It’s amazing to me how many good players use the cheapest string, or string not suited to their style at all, such as a topspin hitter using a non spin string, or a flat hitter using a spin string, or a serve/volleyer using cheap poly over a touch string.
