True Alignment: The One Handed Backhand

On the one-hander the hips are closely aligned with the shot line. When it comes to true alignment on the one-handed backhand, the principles are structurally similar to the two-hander. If anything, the alignment of the hips is even more important. (Click Here for True Alignment on the Two-Hander.) There is much less body rotation in the forward swing on the one hander. So the hips and shoulders stay more sideways, anywhere from completely perpendicular to the net to opening a small amount. In general this means the hips are aligned with the target line or close at contact and also out into the followthrough, although with more extreme grips the body rotation can be somewhat more. Like two-handers one-handers hit open, neutral, and closed. As with the two-hander, top players hit from all three major stance variations, open, neutral and closed although the open stance is much less common with one-hand. Most players are taught to "step into the ball" without any attention to how should happens. This leads to poor set ups, inconsistent distance to the ball, swiveling through the shot, and swings that move across the body too soon. Even though fewer balls are hit open stance,...