Teaching the One Handed Backhand: A Leap of Faith

[stotty]

I think you have understood my post quite correctly, but I love to study tennis and golf biomechanics and like to always discuss these topics ☺. It seems to me that even Federer tries to play his backhand from very closed stance which makes it easier to start the hitting or throwing motion from opening his right hip while left hip stays back. To be more spesific the left leg may even move sideways towards the net at the same time (good golf and tennis players can handle their hips very well).

So, my point is that it is not the hand nor shoulder (maybe very little, perhaps) that is accelerating the hitting arm, but lower body which is moving "independently" (lower body separates from upper body) from upper body is accelerating the racket (racket and racket tip moving from down to up) and the hitting hand is allowed to extend without breaking the wrist angle. After this the racket tip goes up and wrist angle can break. So, there shoudn't be any active splitting the arms away. Usually Federer is already extended fully with the racket hand when the other hand starts balancing.

Personally I have always felt the left arm momentarily acts as a brake or a post (in a small contributive way) for the right side to hit against before the non-hitting arm breaks away. The left arm briefly braces up against the left flank around impact. It's split second thing but's it's there when you toggle through video clips.

[mtjosefs]

Yes, I use the left hand also depending of the situation, but not as a power source. One of my ex-tennis instructor (who has a two-handed backhand) told me that I should not use my hips but pull both hands to opposite sides at the same time and opening the chest also. That was how he understood it. After two weeks my elbow, neck and shoulder was in a bad shape. Then I found a better instructor for me and now I'm without pain.

And I wasn't the only one who got similar problems.

[stotty]

Yes, I use the left hand also depending of the situation, but not as a power source.

You might be right. I am not sure. One thing I discovered oncourt today when I went out and experimented was when I didn't use my non-hitting arm (left it kind of strapped it to my side) power was greatly reduced. Maybe that's because I cannot achieve good balance, or it could splitting the arm away does great power in some way...like an opposite force.

[mtjosefs]

Splitting the arms adds power, sure. That is the reason it is used for backhand slice, but the arms go both more behind the back in slice than sideways. In a slice like Federer does it the hip movement may be very limited or hips are "in a blocked" position, so the power must come from some other place. But it is safe to pull arms to that direction. In a slice Federer adds power also using his right wrist: like hitting with a hammer down. The same wrist action is used in squash slice and stoppers. In slice the kinetic link is not usually used but it is more like a hitting than throwing motion.

But as far as ground stroke is concerned in both backhand and forehand the kinetic link or chain is used. Pulling arms actively and hard to opposite directions usually breaks the wrist angle which is good in slice but bad for normal top spin backhand.

Actually if the kinetic link is used correctly it feels very bad to even try to pull the arms away.

If you have an old racket or similar it is easy to test which way you can throw the racket further. Just make sure you have enough space😊.