Struggle with my 2HB my whole life

[vectorthurm]

I started playing when I was about 10 and I gravitated to a 2hb. However, I never had instruction and I always felt insecure with it. To this day (now 48 although I didn't start playing a lot until about 3 years ago after about a 20 year break) I feel very insecure at times with it. It's odd, I know my problem are mostly footwork and getting flicky with it (I have a bad habit of turning my wrists over as I hit it as opposed to hitting through the ball). I've taken some lessons and one pro said he would like to switch me to a 1hb because I have a nice looking slice..but he said it would be better if I was younger, AKA I'm too old LOL!
Just wondering if anyone has any tips. I've thought of just relying on slice bh for the most part. It's just odd because when I hit against the wall I can actually hit the 1hb better and it comes naturally but when I hit against someone I feel really clumsy with it and a little bit challenged on the process of grip change. I suppose that would come in time if I stuck with it. Just looking for thoughts, input.

 

[Chas Tennis]

First, make a list of all the word instructions that your think of concerning the 2HBH. 'Grip.....', 'Look at the ball', 'Racket back......', ' Feet......', etc. a complete list of how you talk to yourself when you think of fixing or improving your 2HBH, things that you believe. If you image things, try to also work on those mental images.

You should then be able to carefully look at a pro 2HBH in slow motion and just compare what you see being done to your preconceptions. How does your list hold up?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You should get high speed video of your 2HBH and compare it to high level WTA or ATP 2HBHs.

Make a list of the differences that you see. The first item would be the difference in how the shoulders turn back and then forward. Look for details. This works better if you use the same camera angles for both videos.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You should have a list of differences. Decide what to do. Changing those is often difficult. ......................................

 

[speedysteve]

This one's to the point.

I made a concerted effort to hit 2HBH a few years ago but it never felt secure enough.
No matter how much I practiced, coaching etc etc.

I'm hitting TouchTennis against a back board and was dabbling with 2HBH again.

I've normally got a TS 1HBH drive and use slice effectively too.

As soon as I hit harder and from further back, the 1HBH just feels right and more reliable.

One thing with the virus lockdown, I'm hitting at least 1 hr a day against the wall..
I'll keep practising anyway.

 

[esm]

My personal experience is that when I changed my setup to a less HL balance, slightly higher SW and less static weight than before, it lets me to hit better 2HBH. (For a good few years I was using 1HBH & loss of slice with the previous setup & prior to that I was using 2HBH when I started playing in the late 80s)). IME

 

[Nellie]

To smooth out your two-handed backhand stroke, I find it helpful to practice topspin backhand lobs while finishing over your forehand side shoulder to get used to swinging up and through the ball. I also like to practice 2H-BHs while holding the handle using only your thumb and index finger and/or middle finger of your forehand-side hand to get looser and get the feeling of having your back-hand side hand control and power the stroke.

 

[mikeler]

To smooth out your two-handed backhand stroke, I find it helpful to practice topspin backhand lobs while finishing over your forehand side shoulder to get used to swinging up and through the ball. I also like to practice 2H-BHs while holding the handle using only your thumb and index finger and/or middle finger of your forehand-side hand to get looser and get the feeling of having your back-hand side hand control and power the stroke.

These drills make sense to me. I too struggled with my 2 handed backhand as a junior. So I switched to the one hander. After getting tennis elbow a few times in my mid-30s, I went back to 2 hands to relieve the pain. Since my right elbow was sore, the inclination was to hit a left hand dominant 2 handed backhand. That's when the aha moment came on for me.

 

[sredna42]

To smooth out your two-handed backhand stroke, I find it helpful to practice topspin backhand lobs while finishing over your forehand side shoulder to get used to swinging up and through the ball. I also like to practice 2H-BHs while holding the handle using only your thumb and index finger and/or middle finger of your forehand-side hand to get looser and get the feeling of having your back-hand side hand control and power the stroke.

Nice.
My 2hbh splutters to life, then I lose it again for awhile ad nauseum.
When it works, I have the loose feeling like you say, what also has helped is always getting even lower than I think I have to, and sort of straightening up as I hit, and making sure I get my shoulders to snap as I do so.

 

[golden chicken]

I need to remember 2 things to make my two hander work: I have to take the ball in the correct strike zone, and I have to step into the shot.

I can fudge the strike zone a tiny bit, but I almost always hit a terrible shot if I don't step into the ball.

If I need to fudge the strike zone a lot, I tend to hit a one hander. Sometimes slice, sometimes topspin.

This tells me for my two hander to work, I must work harder to move into position correctly--no lazy movement or footwork allowed. As I get older, I also find my core to be less flexible and after suffering a lumbar muscle strain, I don't tend to like fast twisting movements. A one handed backhand allows me to play without putting my body through that additional stress.

 

[mnttlrg]

There is something to be said for playing with a racket that covers for your biggest weakness. Some setups are more 2HBH-friendly than others. Even something like an extra-length racket could make quite a difference. You never really know until you experiment with setups.

Also, I would also suggest looking at a variety of pro players hitting 2HBH's and decide which shot style looks like something that works for you. Do you prefer using your left-hand as a dominant hand? Do you like to dip and snap, or do you prefer to go more perpendicular / point and shoot? There are pros and cons to the variety of different styles of backhands, and you can try to match the shot style up to your physical strengths or weaknesses. Do you have a fast swing, are a fast runner, have a good defensive game, consistency game, etc? If you are not good at anything, you can at least try to come up with a solid neutralizing shot just to keep them off attacks and not bother to emulate someone with a monster backhand.

 

[fuzz nation]

I started playing when I was about 10 and I gravitated to a 2hb. However, I never had instruction and I always felt insecure with it. To this day (now 48 although I didn't start playing a lot until about 3 years ago after about a 20 year break) I feel very insecure at times with it. It's odd, I know my problem are mostly footwork and getting flicky with it (I have a bad habit of turning my wrists over as I hit it as opposed to hitting through the ball). I've taken some lessons and one pro said he would like to switch me to a 1hb because I have a nice looking slice..but he said it would be better if I was younger, AKA I'm too old LOL!
Just wondering if anyone has any tips. I've thought of just relying on slice bh for the most part. It's just odd because when I hit against the wall I can actually hit the 1hb better and it comes naturally but when I hit against someone I feel really clumsy with it and a little bit challenged on the process of grip change. I suppose that would come in time if I stuck with it. Just looking for thoughts, input.

I started out slicing my backhand as a kid before learning any sort of topspin stroke on that side. The two-hander never really became a comfortable thing for me and when I wanted to get to work on it later on as an adult, a teaching pro saw more potential for me to learn a decent one-hander and he coaxed me in that direction. I may have been similar to you in terms of having a good foundation to work with - my slice was sound and only a little tweaking brought a one-hander together rather quickly.

Many folks can find success with building a two-hander in rather short order. Lots of leverage on tap to set-and-fire the shot without a long and involved preparation compared with the one-hander. But after my process of re-tooling my game along with coaching and teaching kids and adults later on, I'm convinced that some of us just have a stronger aptitude for learning a one-handed backhand. Despite some mechanical advantages, the two-hander can be an unnatural, frustrating move for any of us if it's not in our tennis DNA.

Yes, I think that the one-hander can come in time if you stick with it. That's easy to say, but making the transition doesn't just happen after putting in a couple extra hours over the course of a weekend. I think it's important to get real and expect to get worse over the short term in order to learn anything like this and develop it for long term improvement. This is usually the overwhelming deterrent for adults who want to get better - they're not willing to deal with the setbacks for a few weeks or more, so they retreat to the mediocre things that work in the here and now.

For the record, my dad is in his 80's and he's still learning things. There's an ocean of difference between being too old to physically perform like we could during our "warrior years" versus being too old to develop different skills as tennis players. The assertion that somebody is too old to learn something like a one-handed backhand is a cop out.

When you make your decision to really get after learning the one-hander, jump in with both feet. Expect it to make a mess of your game for a little while - that's merely evidence that you're doing something different. It has to happen. One huge obstacle with learning a one-hander is developing the instincts to initiate the forward swing to contact earlier than what we do with either a forehand or a two-handed backhand (or even a bh slice, at least in my opinion). Contact happens further out ahead of the body and accelerating the racquet is a slightly longer process.

I can also say that while I prefer to hit a one-hander, I also use a two-hander to bail me out when an incoming ball gets in near my feet. The two-hander also helps me to sometimes hit a more aggressive topspin return of serve when an opponent's delivery is too fast to let me set up my one-handed stroke for a drive. When I have time, my one-hander is the superior stroke - no comparison. But the two-hander can be useful and I still use my bh slice plenty. If I had to do only one style for the rest of my days, the slice would be it.

 

[vectorthurm]

I started out slicing my backhand as a kid before learning any sort of topspin stroke on that side. The two-hander never really became a comfortable thing for me and when I wanted to get to work on it later on as an adult, a teaching pro saw more potential for me to learn a decent one-hander and he coaxed me in that direction. I may have been similar to you in terms of having a good foundation to work with - my slice was sound and only a little tweaking brought a one-hander together rather quickly.

Many folks can find success with building a two-hander in rather short order. Lots of leverage on tap to set-and-fire the shot without a long and involved preparation compared with the one-hander. But after my process of re-tooling my game along with coaching and teaching kids and adults later on, I'm convinced that some of us just have a stronger aptitude for learning a one-handed backhand. Despite some mechanical advantages, the two-hander can be an unnatural, frustrating move for any of us if it's not in our tennis DNA.

Yes, I think that the one-hander can come in time if you stick with it. That's easy to say, but making the transition doesn't just happen after putting in a couple extra hours over the course of a weekend. I think it's important to get real and expect to get worse over the short term in order to learn anything like this and develop it for long term improvement. This is usually the overwhelming deterrent for adults who want to get better - they're not willing to deal with the setbacks for a few weeks or more, so they retreat to the mediocre things that work in the here and now.

For the record, my dad is in his 80's and he's still learning things. There's an ocean of difference between being too old to physically perform like we could during our "warrior years" versus being too old to develop different skills as tennis players. The assertion that somebody is too old to learn something like a one-handed backhand is a cop out.

When you make your decision to really get after learning the one-hander, jump in with both feet. Expect it to make a mess of your game for a little while - that's merely evidence that you're doing something different. It has to happen. One huge obstacle with learning a one-hander is developing the instincts to initiate the forward swing to contact earlier than what we do with either a forehand or a two-handed backhand (or even a bh slice, at least in my opinion). Contact happens further out ahead of the body and accelerating the racquet is a slightly longer process.

I can also say that while I prefer to hit a one-hander, I also use a two-hander to bail me out when an incoming ball gets in near my feet. The two-hander also helps me to sometimes hit a more aggressive topspin return of serve when an opponent's delivery is too fast to let me set up my one-handed stroke for a drive. When I have time, my one-hander is the superior stroke - no comparison. But the two-hander can be useful and I still use my bh slice plenty. If I had to do only one style for the rest of my days, the slice would be it.

Amazing feedback and advice!! Thank you so much for sharing this. I’m amazed at all the good advice here but what really is cool to know I have experiences that are similar to others. From one standpoint I think I’ve struggled so long with 2HB that it might be high time to commit to one hander. The fact that I can hit against the wall with it makes me think I should be able to develop it. I don’t know why I struggle when I hit full out with it, I’ve thought a lot of it has to do with my lack of a desire to change grips, I hit continental FH and probably change grips very little.

 

[vectorthurm]

Thank you to everyone for such awesome feedback, very much appreciated!

 

[Traffic]

I broke my collarbone and 4 ribs last fall. I first returned onto the court by coaching my buddy who was trying to learn tennis. I couldn't hit a 2HBH anymore because of my limited range of motion. But one thing it did help me with was watching the ball.

Before all the virus issues, my 2HBH was better than ever. In fact, it was more consistent than my FH. The thing I noticed was I was watching the ball nearly to the point of contact.

Also, find a coach that can help with basic mechanics. For the longest time, I had issues with a consistent take-back and timing.

 

[mad dog1]

Thank you to everyone for such awesome feedback, very much appreciated!

Based on your initial post, it sounds like your 2hbh technique is wrong. If you tried to learn the 2hbh on your own and don’t have a solid understanding of the fundamental elements of the stroke, you will struggle mightily. Perhaps seek out a good coach to teach you the proper technique before giving up on it.

 

[vectorthurm]

P

Based on your initial post, it sounds like your 2hbh technique is wrong. If you tried to learn the 2hbh on your own and don’t have a solid understanding of the fundamental elements of the stroke, you will struggle mightily. Perhaps seek out a good coach to teach you the proper technique before giving up on it.

Yes I’m committed to it really because it simply is my tendency..it does feel natural but I’ve got to go back to fundamentals, footwork & I wonder if a lot of it is just getting my unit turn correct with proper mechanics on take back to get loaded. I also notice on my video reviews I hit the ball too late. I wonder how much I could clean things up with simply improving footwork and hitting out in front more.

 

[vectorthurm]

Based on your initial post, it sounds like your 2hbh technique is wrong. If you tried to learn the 2hbh on your own and don’t have a solid understanding of the fundamental elements of the stroke, you will struggle mightily. Perhaps seek out a good coach to teach you the proper technique before giving up on it.

I can definitely relate to the take back issues, I feel clumsy and uncertain with my take back sometimes..

 

[vectorthurm]

Based on your initial post, it sounds like your 2hbh technique is wrong. If you tried to learn the 2hbh on your own and don’t have a solid understanding of the fundamental elements of the stroke, you will struggle mightily. Perhaps seek out a good coach to teach you the proper technique before giving up on it.

And yes I’ve taken a few dedicated lessons with a local pro and she’s given me some great advice....now if I could only follow it lol!

 

[mad dog1]

P


Yes I’m committed to it really because it simply is my tendency..it does feel natural but I’ve got to go back to fundamentals, footwork & I wonder if a lot of it is just getting my unit turn correct with proper mechanics on take back to get loaded. I also notice on my video reviews I hit the ball too late. I wonder how much I could clean things up with simply improving footwork and hitting out in front more.

Send me a link to your video via PM. I can take a look and give you some feedback.

 

[vectorthurm]

Send me a link to your video via PM. I can take a look and give you some feedback.

Pm?

 

[mad dog1]

Pm?

Private message? Or post it here if you want. Just depends on how thick your skin is when it comes to feedback.

 

[fuzz nation]

P


Yes I’m committed to it really because it simply is my tendency..it does feel natural but I’ve got to go back to fundamentals, footwork & I wonder if a lot of it is just getting my unit turn correct with proper mechanics on take back to get loaded. I also notice on my video reviews I hit the ball too late. I wonder how much I could clean things up with simply improving footwork and hitting out in front more.

I think that you're onto the big difference between the timing we need for starting a one-hander compared with starting the swing with either a forehand or a two-handed backhand. The funky thing with the one-hander is that the racquet arm is connected to our front shoulder compared with a forehand or 2hbh where the driving arm is on the back shoulder. In simple terms, this means that the contact point for the 1hbh needs to be that much further out ahead of us - maybe a foot and a half.

One of the little images that has helped me (and also a few of the folks I've coached) to get good extension through a one-hander is the idea of hitting around the side of the ball. I'm a righty. For better extension and stroke timing, I try to extend around the outside of the ball and hit it at it's 9 o'clock - this is the left side of the ball from my perspective. For a left-hander, the cue is to try to hit it out at 3 o'clock.

In either case, the objective is to hit around the ball instead of driving through the back of it (the "back" is the center of the ball from the hitter's point of view at the ball). If we try to go straight through the back of the ball, that can make us late and also make us prone to crowding the ball too much. Extending around the outside of the ball can be great for finding that full swing radius that really lets the racquet fly through the ball.

 

[Morch Us]

I really doubt it is a grip change issue, especially if you have no problem doing the grip change on wall hitting (alternate balls bh and fh in wall hitting). This usually comes down to a footwork and anticipation issue than an actual stroke issue, if there is a big difference from wall to actual court.

Try without the racket on court and see if you can get to that ball and catch it comfortably every time, some even use a tucked in hand to practice this to enforce lower body movement to get in position. You can either use a ball machine or ask someone to feed you balls at different positions in court which you catch.

when I hit against the wall I can actually hit the 1hb better and it comes naturally but when I hit against someone I feel really clumsy with it and a little bit challenged on the process of grip change

 

[travlerajm]

Common fixable mistakes with 2hb:

1. Hitting up too much, not extending forward enough. Fix: don’t worry about topspin until you get consistent hitting flat.

2. Hitting across the ball at contact (like a golfer with slice swing). Diagnosis: arms starting too far away from body:
Fix: start with left elbow touching body. Extend left arm away from body through hitting zone to turn rotational motion of body into linear motion of hitting hand and racquet.
Film from behind for feedback.

3. Left hand grip too overly strong (too semiwestern), resulting in poor feel. Fix: try eastern, with left palm behind flat side of handle.

4. Right hand grip too weak (still with forehand grip), limits forward extension. Fix: Switch to continental but still let left arm do the work.

5. Hitting too close to body, cramped. Resulting in low power. Fix: work on exaggerating early contact way out in front, to get better feel for extending left arm into the ball. Film from side for feedback.

 

[hochiglenn]

I have never felt comfortable with 2 hands. Just feels too restrictive. I feel like I can’t get any power. Like how I would feel throwing a ball or writing left handed. A pro told me our bodies are wired differently. Some are wired for 1 hand others for 2.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[vectorthurm]

All great advice and I really appreciate it! Today I think I may have realized most of my problem is that unlike all my other strokes (well except for serve when I get lazy or tight mentally) my hips can turn to stone with the 2HBH. It could also be due to nerves as I’ve invested mental energy into it over the years. It’s kinda easy for me to fix my FH when it’s off and I remind myself to rotate and coil and it will fall back into line. With 2HBH I suppose it comes down to more time and a bit more involve footwork wise to get that coil.
Thanks all for the feedback it definitely all helps!

 

[vectorthurm]

I hit forehand with continental grip so I really have minimal grip change throughout my strokes..so I’m pretty sure it’s not a grip thing..

 

[zaph]

The first thing I would say is most people feel less comfortable on their backhand side. It doesn't matter if it is a two hander or one hander, for most it is a harder shot. One comment you make that is enlightening is the one about flicking. Try to use most body, don't just use your arms, it does suggest your feet might not be quite in right place.

The other thing is confidence. I use to hold back because I didn't trust it. Have a practice sessions were you really let go and smack the thing. See what you can do. I actually hit a fair few backhand winners because it is flatter than my forehand.