The Lansdorp One-Handed Backhand

Elliot’s backhand was one of the best in the game. You can develop yours in exactly the same way.

If there’s one shot I can teach, it’s the one-handed backhand.

Recently I had a chance to see some video of Elliot Teltscher hitting backhands, 30 years after
I first worked with him. To me, he had one of the great backhands of all time and it still looks classic.
So I want to outline for you how I developed Elliot’s backhand as well as every other player I have ever
trained, including the story of how Pete Sampras switched from two hands to one hand when he was 16 years
old.

As I explained in the last article on the two-hander, which backhand you develop is a
matter of personal preference (See the Lansdorp Two-Handed Backhand). Unless a kid tells me he definitely
wants to hit with one-hand, I’ll start them with a two-hander, because young players will have far more
success earlier in their careers with two hands. At a certain point though, I’ll have the kid experiment
with the idea of hitting with one-hand.

I’ll see that the two-hander is getting pretty good. It looks like he’s hitting…