True that. Agassi would probably be most people's universal consensus choice for the two-hander. Peak Hewitt was also incredibly dialed in. Chang, Bruguera, Kafelnikov, and Rios to me all get honorable mention since nobody will mention them as being goat in this category, but Chang could feather dip the most accute short angled backhand passes and thread the needle down the line with his two-hander almost at will on the **** with his little bent wrist thing. He got down low to the ball so well it was like he was doing yoga. Rios' backhand was just soooo difficult to read, because he had the simplest, most elan little takeback in the world, but then he could rifle it down the line with the accuracy of a KGB sniper, or send it dashing crosscourt on a laser-guided trajectory, or he could dip it low and take it real slow, real sultry, Latin hip-skip style on you. Bruguera's two-hander was also exceptionally difficult to read, few people held the direction longer on the pass than he could because of his ideosyncratic box-beam take back. He would literally freeze formidable volleyers like Rafter and Sampras in their tracks with his backhand pass trying to guess which way he'd go. He could hit the acute angles, cross, or flat down the line, with the best of them off this pass. The difference between he and Chang on the pass is that Chang had one of the all time great topspin lobs (those floppy bent limp wrists of his again coming into play), but Bruguera could flatten it out for major pace when he decided to lay his full body length into the shot. Chang lacked power on his pass, but had everything else...though I tend to think his crosscourt pass was more effective due to his bent wrist thing make it difficult to truly pancake flatten it out down the line (a la a Kafelnikov). Kafelnikov was a frozen-rope backhand passing shot artist. What he lacked in modulation, he made up for in sheer overengineered simplicity. Pace + flat + razor sharp accuracy at his best.
Agassi to me lacked the finesse and wizardry on the pass of some others like Bruguera and Rios, but what made his pass so consistently effecitve and fearsome was that he more so than any other tried to rip it ON THE RISE on the pass. He really aggressively charged his passes, I guess is the way to think of it in the same way that you think of Edberg being the guy who really agressively charged the net. Agassi was like the Edberg of passing shots. Rios the McEnroe of passing shots. Bruguera the Becker jack of all trades master of none of passing shots. Chang the Rafter of passing shots, tenacious but not necessarily singularly gifted or overwhelming.
