Hi guys Nick here from Intuitive Tennis. Today I want to talk about the role of
the non-dominant hand on the two-handed backhand. So the most common way to teach
a two-hander is to simply instruct the student that you must hit it like a
left-handed forehand and that takes care of you two-handed backhand. Well that is
not good instruction and let's find out in today's video which hand does more
when it comes to the two-hander.
So to fully understand which hand is doing more on the two-handed backhand we
must take a look into where the power comes from and the power on the two-handed
backhand comes from the rotation and the contraction of the arms and so if we
take a look on this shot we're going to start rotating and the forward phase of
the swing and then once we make contact we continue the rotation until the right
elbow goes towards the back fence and you can see in this type of rotation is
that the right side of my body is leading the way and not the left side
It's the right side of the body going all the way across and I'm finishing
somewhere around here. So if we take a look at the contact on the backhand all
good backhands, no matter what the arm structure you have, whether it's straight
or bent the left shoulder on right-handers is always going to be
slightly behind the right shoulder and from this position on and there's no
further extension with the left hand in other words if a player has extension
he's already going to be extended like this prior to contact and this left
shoulder is still going to be behind the right shoulder even in a straight
straight structure like this, the contact is still going to be the left
shoulder behind the right shoulder and what that means is that the right side
is that contact leading the way when it comes to power. So if we take a look at
the tip of the racket at contact and after contact we can clearly see that the
the right side of the body is leading the way. Just take a look.
The tip of the racket will go forward while my hands are going across and this
happens through the body's rotation so I'm going across and I'm rotating at the
same time and that is what's making the racket tip and go up and across this way.
If I use my left arm more on the two-handed backhand, the tip of the racket would
kind of overpower the right side of the body and my right arm would get
tucked underneath like this and the only player that I know that does this is
Andy Murray he's one of the only players is more left arm dominant you can see
when he hits backhands the tip of the racket it comes across further than the
grip this way and then it finishes somewhere around here but most other
players including some of the best backhands of all time Agassi, Djokovic,
Zverev, Nalbandian. You see the tip of the racquet go in a clean fashion
this way and it's the body's rotation that's making this happen.
If you take a look at some of the professional players we can clearly see
that they're using the right side of the body more and for example Bjorn Borg
with one of the greatest topspin backhands back in the day and he would
hit the backhand like this it would make contact with two hands that's a great
stability even back then and then he would let go of the racket with his left
arm and finished with one arm like this and even today you have players doing this
technique for example David Ferrer. He also has a one arm finish he makes
contact here and then he finishes across only with one arm so it is clear to see
that the power cannot come from the left side on those players if they're only
finishing with one arm like this. However there is one circumstance we do indeed
use the left hand more on the two-handed backhand and that is in an open stance
backhand and the reason is, in the open stance backhand the shoulders are going
to be more parallel to each other and so from here and we're going to be more
pulling the racquet across with the left side of the body and especially if we
are reaching and we're getting pulled way out of a strike zone now from here
we have there's no chance to pull across this way I'm going to have to use the
non-dominant arm and to help the ball over the net like this.
The majority of two-hanede backhands on the ATP and WTA Tour are hit closed
stance and I don't want to get into the reason why in this video. There's going
to be a separate video where we discuss open stance vs. closed stance but the fact
remains. Majority of the backhands are hit closed stance, therefore it's more of the
right side of the body applying the power at contact and on the finish on
the two-handed backhand.
Thank you so much guys for watching this video. Please leave a comment in the
section below. Hit that like button and subscribe if you haven't already. I'll
see you next time.