Analyzing the ATP rankings at the end of the year, one data emerges clearly: the crisis of the one-handed backhand. Of the top 100 players in the world, 92 play it with two hands and only 8 are the interpreters of the one-handed shot.
The one-handed backhand is a shot that is increasingly less widespread on the ATP Tour. A sport that is increasingly based on the power of the two-handed backhand, which is increasingly dominating.
Analyzing the top 10, there are 9 players with a two-handed backhand: Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Taylor Fritz, Casper Ruud, Novak Djokovic, Alex de Minaur and Andrey Rublev. While only at number 10 is the first player with a one-handed backhand: the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov.
I was saying that there are 92 players with a two-handed backhand and only 8 who play it one-handed. As mentioned, the highest ranked player is Grigor Dimitrov (ATP number 10). Then there is the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas who follows him in the rankings at 11th place.
Dimitrov© Instagram Grigor Dimitrov / Fair use
The third player in order of ranking is Lorenzo Musetti, another great interpreter of this fundamental shot. Musetti is ATP number 17. Then there is the Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, number 31 in the world. Another 4 players outside the top 50: Denis Shapovalov at number 56, Australian Christopher O’Connell at number 64, Serbian Dusan Lajovic at number 81 and German Daniel Altmaier at number 89.
Still active but outside the top 100 are two other extraordinary one-handed backhands: Stan Wawrinka’s, one of the best shots ever for speed and beauty, and Richard Gasquet. The Swiss is now number 161 in the world and the Frenchman is number 129 in the ATP ranking.
It is clear that in the last 20 years there has been a drastic decline in the users of the one-handed backhand. If before this shot was common, now tennis players focus more on the search for power and control. The grace of the one-handed backhand, which in the last decades has given interpreters like Roger Federer, Wawrinka and Gasquet themselves, is becoming a less and less peculiar characteristic in modern tennis, where physical strength is suppressing qualities such as touch and grace in movements.
New racket technologies, the composition of courts, increasingly slowed down to favor rallies and – consequently – the show, has led many players and coaches to opt for a safer shot, with greater control and that expresses greater power (and why not, I would also add that expresses more protection with respect to the margin of error). The one-handed backhand is now a shot on the way to extinction.
Tennis World USA