hey guys in today's video i want to talk about the biggest two-handed backhand myth there is and that
is that the two-handed backhand is supposed to be dominated by the non-dominant arm and furthermore
the two-handed backhand is supposed to be like a lefty forehand if one was right-handed so in
today's video i want to tell you why this is absolutely not the case the two-handed backhand
is absolutely nothing like a lefty forehand if you happen to be right-handed now i'm not saying
this to cause a stir i do understand that the vast majority of coaches teaches the two-handed
backhand basically by teaching a lefty forehand and i'm telling you that these two shots a lefty
forehand and a right-handed two-handed backhand is absolutely nothing in common and i'm talking about
zero percent there are very unlike in all technical aspects of those two strokes in
actuality what the two-handed backhand is very similar to is the one-handed backhand and if you
go way back if you look at textbooks from the 80s you will see that the two-handed backhand used to
be taught like this two hands were on the racket in the backswing two hands were on the racket at
the contact and then just one hand would continue to stroke while the non-dominant hand would let
go of the racket and in fact this is how many professional players used to strike the two-handed
backhand most famously bjorn borg but also some modern players such as david ferrer would hit
the two-handed backhand in a way where they would let go of the racquet with their non-dominant hand
shortly after the moment of contact now i'm going to get into great technical detail why
the two-handed backhand is nothing like a forehand later on in the video i'm also gonna explain the
distinction which arm is actually dominant on the two-handed backhand because it does get a little
bit confusing there are some players who are a little bit more dominant with their non-dominant
side when it comes to the shot but first i want to tell you a couple of stories the first story
is about a junior player i used to coach so this girl was a phenomenal player and she was a natural
lefty she had played lefty until she was seven years old and her best shot was her two-handed
lefty backhand she could hit it very hard for her age she was very consistent
and it was a very aesthetically nice looking stroke a famous coach who shall remain unnamed
who was training this girl decided to switch this girl to play right-handed and this went on
for three years and the mother of this girl was concerned about the level of her game it wasn't
going too well playing right-handed as a natural lefty so she started looking for other coaches
and hired me and after a few months i decided to switch this girl back to her natural playing hand
which was her left hand and something happened that completely blew my mind so this girl
had had a phenomenal two-handed lefty backhand and i knew this from looking at videos back before
she switched to playing right-handed and now what happened was after three years of playing
righty forehands you would think that her lefty two-handed backhand would improve but the exact
opposite was the case now her two-handed lefty backhand was her absolute worst shot she had lost
all the continuity she lost all the power and all the control and also it didn't look good anymore
the stroke it wasn't aesthetically pleasing at all and this got me the question this whole idea that
the two-handed backhand was supposed to be like a forehand and i started thinking about my own game
and i realized that my two-handed backhand is absolutely my best shot this is the most
consistent shot i hardly miss it at the same time my left-handed forehand is an
absolute disaster i am not very good playing lefty actually played some sets with some very low
ntrp players and actually lost lefty this is how bad i am as a lefty so i have absolutely no skills
with my left hand but yet my two-handed backhand is by far my best shot so this information worried
me and this led me to do a tremendous amount of research on the two-handed backhand and today's
video i'm gonna break down why the two-handed backhand is nothing like a lefty forehand if
you happen to be right-handed and i'm also going to tell you how it works when it comes to which
arm is dominant on this particular shot so here's the deal guys i get a lot of players that come to
me and they want to so badly learn the two-handed backhand and this is what it looks like their
right arm if they happen to be right handed is completely overwhelmed by the left side it
gets tucked in and completely over dominating this stroke with the left side of the body
so if you allow your left arm to take over on your backhand and that right side collapses underneath
the racket you're gonna lose a lot of range of motion and you're gonna lose a lot of continuity
remember the biggest power source on the two-handed backhand is the torso rotation we have
a little bit less range of motion naturally on the two-handed backhand because we're holding the
racket with two hands we have more range of motion with one hand so what that means is that we need
to utilize the torso rotation to generate power we need to rotate as far as possible i often compare
this to a golf drive this is the type of finish that you need on your two-handed backhand to be
able to get the most amount of power but also to get the most amount of control which naturally if
you intend to finish the backhand up across and back will result in a more vertical swing path
so what happens if you allow the left arm to dominate the stroke this right side will be
completely collapsed underneath the racket and your finish will be greatly shortened
because of that now this is the case where recreational players will hear something and
they will exaggerate so when i see a backhand like this it means that the stroke is possibly
95% left arm dominant however when we look at the pro tour there are some players who are a
little bit more dominant with the left side for example andy murray and this is easy to see if
we look at the stroke from the front so whenever the tip of the racket goes past the level of the
handle so if you see this movement right here if the tip of the racket goes past the handle
this means that the left arm is dominant and andy murray does this very frequently
on his two-handed backhand however the greatest two-handed backhands of all time which in my
opinion are djokovic nalbandian and agassi are right arm dominant so what that means is that the
tip of the racket never goes past the level of the handle it's the right arm that is leading the way
now there's also going to be some specialty shots on the two-hander where
the left arm is going to be dominant if one happened to be right handed so on emergency shots
on the backhand where the racket is too far away from the body the left hand will need to help out
and this will be a situation where the left arm is absolutely dominant also when the ball
is very high when it's struck at the shoulder height when we have to hit down we cannot leave at
the right side we're gonna have to lead with the left side of the body and the right arm will be a
little bit collapsed underneath the racket so this is in specialty situations where the left arm indeed
is dominating the right arm but when we're talking about dominating we're talking about
the 60 40 range or the 55 45 range i as a player i have no idea which hand is doing more work because
to me it feels like both hands are doing an even amount of work and this is exactly the tip
i'm going to give you if you happen to have a two-handed backhand do not concern yourself
which arm is going to dominate the stroke because most likely if you focus on dominating the stroke
with the right or the left you're going to do it way too much you're going to exaggerate and the
ratio is going to be 70 30 80 20 or worst case scenario is going to be 90 10 and now you're
going to cause great harm to your two-handed backhand so what you must do instead is not
think about your hands at all and let the two-handed backhand happen naturally and what will happen
is that the range is going to be 55 45 or 60 40 and most likely most players that i have studied
are a little bit right side dominant so we're talking about nalbandian agassi or djokovic
or currently zverev who has in my opinion the best backhand on tour outside nadal and djokovic
all these players are right side dominant but not by much maybe it's in the 60 40 range and
i guarantee you that these players are not spending one second thinking about which arm
is doing more now listen i'm fully aware that the same players i'm talking about for example zverev
or serena williams are going to tell you that the best thing you can do on your two-hander is to
hit it like a lefty forehand but i guarantee you that these players are not feeling that
when they're playing they're just regurgitating what they've heard from other coaches and why is
that because the two-handed backhand is absolutely nothing like a left-handed forehand and it is more
like a one-handed backhand and here's the reason why so let's talk about what happens
on a left-handed forehand this is for right-handed players when we are taking the racket back number
one we're going to loop the racket and now when the racket starts to drop in the back we're going
to initiate the torso rotation meaning that once we get in the forward phase the chest is already
going to be open and we're going to continue to rotate and when we make contact the dominant
shoulder is going to be ahead of the non-dominant shoulder now the two-handed backhand is a very
complex shot it has many little intricacies and one of the things that's very interesting
on the two-handed backhand is the timing of the torso rotation which is unlike any other shot in
tennis so it has a delayed torso rotation which means that when players have their racket above
the level of the handle they're not going to start rotating when they drop the racket so that's the
big difference between this shot and a forehand so the rotation is going to start
when the racket gets neutralized so when the racket gets to a neutral area and we
begin to go forward now we're going to rotate the shoulders and what will naturally happen
is that we'll make contact with the non-dominant shoulder behind the dominant shoulder
so if i were to hit my two-handed backhand like a forehand i would have to loop the racket and this
is not something that is very comfortable to do with two hands it feels very awkward and now also
i would have to start rotating while the racket is dropping and this would open me up too early
i wouldn't be able to get the racket back very far it would overall lead to a lack of range of motion
so what needs to happen on the two-handed backhand is unlike any other shot in tennis
and you need to have a rotation that's delayed where you are waiting in this position with
the shoulders completely turned and when that racket starts to drop it gets into a neutral
position you start going forward this is when you initiate the rotation and you're making
contact quite late and this is why the two-handed backhand is nothing like a left-handed forehand
when we're talking about the finish the two-handed backhand is far more similar to a one-handed
backhand than it is to a forehand when we're finishing the stroke on the forehand the rotation
is going to be a lot bigger and a lot fuller and simply because we started it earlier so on the
forehand you will have a contact that's happening way more out front and also finish with a bigger
rotation we can't achieve this when we're striking the ball on the backhand side the rotation will
biomechanically be smaller whether it is a one-handed backhand or a two-handed backhand and we cannot get
the same finish that we do on a forehand i have a feeling you guys are going to mention
in the comments that sharapova used to practice her lefty forehand and she had one of the best
two-handed backhands on tour and there are by the way many other players who practice
lefty forehands and that is not a bad thing to do by any means i think it's very useful to practice
lefty it trains the other side of your brain it trains the weaker side of your body it's
absolutely something that i encourage people to do however this will do absolutely nothing
to improve your backhand but even more importantly if you're recreational players and you're trying
to learn the two-handed backhand playing the two-handed backhand like a lefty forehand if you
happen to be right handed will absolutely not teach you how to hit the stroke.