Hi guys Nick here from intuitive tennis. In today's video we're going to discuss the
advantages and disadvantages of both the one-handed backhand return and the
two-handed backhand return. Which one is better? Check out today's video and find
out
Let's start off with the advantages of the one-handed backhand return and the
first advantage one-handed return players have is that they have a better
ability to slice and chip the return back in play and great examples are
Stan Wawrinka and Roger Federer who very often will chip the return back in play
keep the ball low and prevent the other person to be aggressive or maybe even a
draw an error this way. So one-handed players are more experienced in slicing
the backhand because number one they play with one hand all the time and so
their slice techniques a little bit more adaptable to their game
two-handed players often struggle at the junior level at the recreational level
or even at the WTA level with slice backhands simply because they're not used
to playing with one arm and maybe they don't practice this shot too much so when
they play a match and they're likely not going to choose the option of a chiping
the return back and so one-handed return players are a little bit more
have a little bit more variety and when it comes to return to serve
one-handed the backhand players are often more comfortable when it comes to
one-handed shots on the backhand side because they always play with one hand
there's an advantage when the ball comes to the body where a two-hander might
have to move out of the way to hit the backhand if that player is uncomfortable
hitting a one-handed shot a one-handed player can simply have his racket in the
middle of his body and he can cover a body serve a little bit easier if
they're used to playing with one hand
and the biggest advantage of having a one-handed backhand return is on the
block and the block is going to occur further in front and then it would on a
two-handed player and because with two hands we can't reach as far in front and you
can look from this view we can't reach as far in front if we just simply
attempted to block the return back and where a one-handed player can get that
racket a little bit more in front of the body and Roger Federer is the master of
blocking returns back in play even for winners sometimes and you can see here
that the arm is extended and the racket is further in front and the advantage on
the one-handed backhand return
one disadvantage of returning with one hand is that the grip changes are
slightly larger so most players will wait for the for the one-handed return
of serve in a grip that's between a continental grip and an Eastern grip
some people call this the Australian grip is on that edge between a
continental and eastern and that's where most 2-handed players and 1-handed players wait on the
return so if I get a backhand on the return now I have a slightly larger grip
change than a two-handed player would so there is a slight disadvantage when it comes
to the one-handed backhand return
another disadvantage of returning one hand is the the serve bounces very high
let's say on a high kick serve it's very difficult to return high with one hand
there's a big advantage with two hands here so the one handed player is forced to
improvise when the ball gets a little higher or they have to start tinkering
with the timing where they maybe take the ball a little bit earlier or to back
up and let the ball drop but on stationary returns on a high kick serve
there's definitely a disadvantage when it comes to high balls
the biggest disadvantage of having a one-handed backhand return is the
inability to take a full swing and you can even see this at the highest level
and when Roger Federer hits backhand return winners and they're usually block
return winners and some of the greatest block returners of all time were Roger
Federer Michael Stich and Boris Becker and it could
simply absorb at the pace from the from the server and with the very minimal
swing is just here to here and they will be able to block the return for a winner
and just basically take all the pace from the serve and this is however very
difficult to do and it it requires excellent timing and the reason why
one-handed the returners have a hard time taking full swings is that the one-handed backhand
generally requires more of a shoulder turn and so if you hit a
backhand it's very difficult to get the racket all the way back if we don't turn
our shoulders if you even turn them a little bit we can take a little further
back but if you get a full shoulder turn and naturally this racket goes all the
way back so when a fast serve comes there's not gonna be a full shoulder
turn and therefore and the player will simply go like this and he won't be able
to turn all the way he will just block the ball back where a two-handed player
and has a big advantage in this regard where 2-handed players almost always are able
to take a full swing players like Djokovic Agassi and Nalbandian
because with two hands we can take the racket back without a shoulder turn with
the help of the left hand so you can see here that even without me turning all
the way I can still get that racket tip pointing towards the back fence and I
can take a fuller swing and therefore I can generate my own power
the two-handed backhand return has many advantages over the one-handed backhand
return and one slight advantage could be that most players wait in an Australian
grip as we already discussed and so from the Australian grip to a continental is
a minimal a grip change see this is just a small little change here and this can
happen very quick so that's one advantage for the 2-hander versus at the
1-hander
another advantage the two-hander has is high serves. Obviously we have the high ball
here with two hands we can use that left hand and to help to the ball back over
the net and we do not have this option on the one handed return so high balls
high kicking serves are definitely easier for the two-handed return player
stability is another reason why two hander has an advantage over the one
hander and when the ball comes at a great speed on the serve you simply have
contact with two hands there's greater stability then if the same is done with
one hand and junior players even recreational players will find a great
instability on hard serves with one hand and therefore they will go for the chip
most of the time there's a lot of pressure being absorbed on a hard serve
with one hand and also the the fingers are in front of the racket on the one
hand and so if the lot of force comes this way and this racket might get
pushed back a little bit where with the two hander this is not a problem at all with
two hands we have the other hand behind the racket and on very hard
serves we have the stability at contact and that we need and to be able to hit a
clean shot
and the biggest advantage the two-hander has over the one hander is the
ability to take full swings you will notice that the greatest returners of all
time and Novak Djokovic and Andre Agassi would rarely block the return
back in play like the one handers do if you look at their racket the racket will
always on the two-handed return and go back to the back fence so the tip of the
racket will go to the back fence and they will take a fuller swing usually to
about right here and sometimes it will finish it even a little bit more and
this happens even on fast serves and the reason for this is that the 2-handed backhand
requires less over shoulder turn so we can make a a small turn here and we
still have the ability to get the racket all the way back and then take a
moderate swing at the ball and not only are we using the pace but we also are
giving the ball a little bit of extra and this can create phenomenal returns
and this is definitely an advantage for the two handers
the clear winner between the one-handed backhand return of the two-handed
backhand return is the two-handed backhand return with very few
disadvantages the only disadvantage I can think of would be maybe at the
recreational level or even at the junior level or the WTA level where players
maybe are not comfortable slicing the backhand and chipping it back it kind of
leaves the variety out of the game and for those players on the return of serve
or maybe they can get jammed on the body serves sometimes and they're
uncomfortable using one hand and that is about it I don't really see this is a
problem on the ATP because most two-handed players in the ATP also
possess a great slice backhand such as a Novak Djokovic or Alexander Zverev and
so the clear winner on the return is the two-handed backhand
thank you guys for
watching this video I hope you enjoyed it please leave a comment in the section
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haven't already I'll see you next time