Curious
G.O.A.T.
Warm up. Hitting back to him.
What a pain! One handed backhand
- Thread starter Curious
- Start date
zill
Legend
Next time hit to his fh side please. Would like to see that.
optic yellow
Legend
With a 1HBH do you ever prefer trading CC over going DTL?
ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
Curious
G.O.A.T.
Correct. Can’t find the slot dynamically (as in part of a loop and drop) using a modern ohbh technique. So tried getting straight to the slot on take back. Again doesn’t feel quite right but it’s more right as a swing.
zill
Legend
CC should be the norm of any ground stroke.
zill
Legend
Can’t be right then. That’s the easiest way to disapprove something in tennis.
ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
It looked good though. Unfortunately it is another revisit. He has been here before, essentially with the Muster bh. I only stopped the video once but he didn’t have the racquet two plus feet outside his body for a change. It is possible he has been doing it wrong for so long he thinks wrong is right.
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optic yellow
Legend
If you are a ***** sure.
zill
Legend
Sorry? What?
optic yellow
Legend
If you are playing manly aggressive tennis your default mindset is always to kill with an unreturnable DTL shot.
zill
Legend
optic yellow
Legend
Oh I thought we were talking in general.
zill
Legend
In this thread we are helping Curious. That is all.
ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
He is beyond help.
ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
It is a public forum and you can ask any questions you like, but is the answer to this question going to help your tennis? What is the goal here?
Everything you did in that last video was better than before. But, it would be helpful to get to the starting point of that bh by having more fluidity, which eliminates jerking the ball to contact, by lowering the racquet to there. It would be fine to pause at the bottom of the drop, if it helps. Further down the line you can eliminate some of that time between dropping and moving to contact, but you can’t skip that “racquet behind the hip, off-hand on throat” position, so be careful.
Curious
G.O.A.T.
Dragy
Legend
It's a 2m high, 98kg pro athlete playing with a racquet that's like a toy to him. Senior rec player cannot efficiently use such technique, will be weakish bunting.
Dragy
Legend
This can only work well for one unique old dude. You cannot be serious! Your technique is already easier do play well with. You only need groove, confidence and footwork.
zill
Legend
Oh wow, early release like me but good drop as you say.
Here is me fooling around a couple weeks ago with a lower level player. Hit some 1hb here which for me is probably the best it will get with the 1hb knowing what I know though as expected getting minimal drop. Oddly my fh went completely off when hitting a 1hb. But goes back good again when hitting the 2hb. BTW my 2hb is just going from strength to strength and have improved it since this vid and definitely NOT switching back to the 1hb. Was just fooling around here for my 1hb.
Watch from 0:54 to 11:35
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StringSnapper
Hall of Fame
your opponent looks like he's going to hit a 2 hander before he hits a one hander, he should put his off hand on the throat not the handle
zill
Legend
Lol the guy reminds me of you though younger and worse! So very keen to learn and improve. That hit was after comp and I was showing him technique. He said he improved a lot after that session. He wanted to see himself hit and that is why I recorded it. Yes, I told him about the strange 1hb prep and I think he has since corrected it.
Curious
G.O.A.T.
Your drop is fine. Your 1hbh is good!
zill
Legend
Minimal drop. Early release just like Perricard but for the life of me cannot drop anywhere near he could underneath the incoming ball.
Curious
G.O.A.T.
Dragy
Legend
It’s not the lack of drop, it’s lack of proper swing: you are “losing” your wrist and back-slapping at the ball when better technique implies all-arm rotation with racquet head coming higher than handle into the ball, not after impact
That’s exactly opposite to what you do on 2HBH in terms that right arm isn’t responsible for this part there, so understandable. I have to remind myself to use my left hand properly on 2HBH, as OHBH memory is still strong…
zill
Legend
It’s not the lack of drop, it’s lack of proper swing: you are “losing” your wrist and back-slapping at the ball when better technique implies all-arm rotation with racquet head coming higher than handle into the ball, not after impact
That’s exactly opposite to what you do on 2HBH in terms that right arm isn’t responsible for this part there, so understandable. I have to remind myself to use my left hand properly on 2HBH, as OHBH memory is still strong…
Lol its my lack of proper prep/setup/drop that is making my correct forward swing look bad/wrong.
Dragy
Legend
Maybe so. Not worth discussing, anyway, sorry. You are not practicing it.
zill
Legend
My 1hb prep use to be a lot worse as I remember Curious using the word 'slap' with regards to my 1hb many many times before. Even made a vid demonstrating it to me lol. Though he also claimed that I hit the hardest 1hb he had ever seen for a rec player.
Dragy
Legend
You can have pretty brief OHBH prep, for serve return for example. Like in that M-P video. And still proper swing. But it will only go somewhere if there’s incoming pace, or the racquet is 115 with nat gut.
Fintft
G.O.A.T.
The can't rip the ball part is a no no for me. Even in doubles I rip it CC with success against FHs.
Curious
G.O.A.T.
I think you can swing fast, hit hard with that type of simple take back too if you time it well.
Injured Again
Hall of Fame
The take back with my off hand on the handle works for me for several reasons which may not be applicable to others.
First is I’m wide and fairly inflexible from a core twisting perspective. Putting my off hand on the throat increases my shoulder turn and I don’t need or want that.
Second and more importantly for me, it gives me better proprioception of the vertical height of my hitting hand. That helps me to both have a more consistent swing path to the ball, and allows me to manipulate how much topspin I apply because I can lower or raise the racquet head on takeback to vary how much vertical component the racquet head requires to get to the contact point. I personally found it easier to vary the amount of forearm pronation and to keep both hands at the level of the handle, than to vary the height of my offhand in comparison to my hitting hand if I wanted to use more or less pronation.
Third, for whatever reason, I was better able to start learning how to hit a down the line or even slightly inside out backhand by slightly reducing the spacing to the ball and bringing the racquet handle a bit closer on the takeback. That was the point of this video.
It works for me but probably isn’t for everyone.
Curious
G.O.A.T.
I don’t really understand any of your reasoning for your unique off hand position on the racket. By the way I just noticed that your off hand doesn’t even hold the racket, it’s just on it, which is even more interesting. Anyway I linked your video because it looked very similar to what Zill’s hitting partner does.
classic old school one hander - like it!
Curious
G.O.A.T.
Me, too. Unbelievably simple and effective.
Curious
G.O.A.T.
is he hitting w/ a wooden racket? lol. yeah, that's some serious 70s **** right there.
Edit: i'd like to see the poster play someone for whom that is a comfortable light pace and can return his shots with power and lots of spin. then, meh, not so much.
optic yellow
Legend
A nice firm slap more than a ponderous swing.
zill
Legend
@Injured Again what is your experience with the 1hb? Do you have trouble with it to go cross court in matches?
10sbeast888
Professional
first of all - low take back can't work today... the ball jumps too high with everybody using polys.
tell you guys a trick - hit the ball intentionally with the lower part of the racket. say if you have 16 mains, hit with the 12th main.
the racket swing path is mirror image of each other between the fh and the 1hbh, but this is unique to the bh.
when the arm extends the forearm wants to pronate, which adds power to the lower part of the racket, it also keeps the face closed for longer = better accuracy.
try it.
tell you guys a trick - hit the ball intentionally with the lower part of the racket. say if you have 16 mains, hit with the 12th main.
the racket swing path is mirror image of each other between the fh and the 1hbh, but this is unique to the bh.
when the arm extends the forearm wants to pronate, which adds power to the lower part of the racket, it also keeps the face closed for longer = better accuracy.
try it.
Curious
G.O.A.T.
So you want me to hit close to the edge of sweet spot instead of somewhere around the middle? Ok, great idea!!
10sbeast888
Professional
yes the red cross. try it, you will hit the heaviest bh ever. and more accuracy.
the other reason is you do get a bit more run way for acceleration.
this idea is especially good for hitting dtl which is not the natural direction. but by keeping the face closed for so long you can dtl quite easily.
this is somewhat similar to TAkao's idea of a slice serve.
actually in terms of the swing path a 1hbh is quite similar to the serve!
Curious
G.O.A.T.
No, thanks. I’m shanking even aiming the green cross!
Injured Again
Hall of Fame
I started working on slight changes to my backhand during Covid (which is when that video was from) because I had a tough time hitting down the line. My crosscourt backhand has always been consistent and strong enough to keep me neutral against 4.5 level players but without an ability to go down the line, better players would take advantage and find ways to take advantage of that one dimensional shot.
In the end, I cut down the amount I would pronate on the takeback. I moved my contact point just a hair farther forward and a hair closer. I hit a bit less topspin but could then go down the line more easily.
It’s been probably three years since that video and I still don’t have a reliable DTL backhand but it is a shot I can hit often enough that my opponents think I can and will hit it so they just won’t sit on my crosscourt.
Injured Again
Hall of Fame
This video was about a year after the other video and you can see that I’m better able to hit down the line and even inside out a little bit, at least in his highly controlled ball machine feed environment.
But like I was originally unsuccessfully trying to explain, I do things like the early release because it accommodates my aged body and my physiology, and probably won’t work for others.
I change the amount of topspin I am trying to hit by how much I pronate my forearm right at the initiation of the forward swing. With my left hand either on the throat or grasping the handle, it would interfere with that so I separate early.
I do not keep my off hand on the racquet much on my forehand or volleys either. It’s not the best way but I guess I’ve compensated for doing it wrong all these years.
