This ONE Shot is Taking Over the Pro Game!

Oh no. I won one. But you know what? You have to fail before you succeed. I like it. Here we go. Like, like what, like what planet is that good? What's up everybody? If you guys have seen that video before, unfortunately, we have too. So today we're going to talk about the progression of my two-hand backhand dink, why I find it so useful, and of course, see how I'm doing with all of it. All right. Just as Caden said, this is a shot that he's been working on. It's actually a shot that I've been bringing into my game and also teaching a lot of students and a lot of other players as we learn how to be more offensive on our backhand side. So Caden, it took you several months to get this to where you're dialing it in. Yeah. Even at the highest level, he just played some games against the Johns brothers. Had a match point there. Did. But we talked about that on the podcast, but we're going to show you today the things, all the things he's been learning about this dink, setup wise, grip and all that stuff. So that you don't have to struggle with what to know, where to move your feet and how to hit this ball because Caden's put in the hard work and yeah, let's get right into it. Okay. So with this two hand backhand, clearly you have to be confident and you have to be consistent in this shot because otherwise at the highest level, if you make the mistakes for your opponents, you're going to get beat pretty easily. So I've spent a lot of time getting comfortable with this shot, making little adjustments to make it a little bit easier for myself. And the first thing that I've kind of adjusted in my game is believe it or not, actually holding my paddle here in ready position with two hands. So adding this second hand adds a little bit of stability, of course, and it prepares me for this two hander a little bit easier. And when I do need to go to one hand, I am able to just release from there. So I don't have to add a second hand to do anything crazy. I'm just releasing. And from there I have everything kind of set in place for where I need to be. So now we know where my paddle is. I now have to really focus on the footwork and the consistency of my setup when hitting my two hand backhand dink. So my footwork has gotten a lot cleaner. It's actually helped me on both my two hand and my one hand backhand dink. But my setup is just a lot more precise. I know exactly where I need to hit the ball. And typically, I would say we want to make as much contact in the center of our body as possible. But believe it or not, we actually want to hit this two hand backhand dink kind of right on the inside of the knee. So if this is my center point and here's my knee, I kind of hit it right at this middle part of the two of these spots. And this is my perfect contact point. And I set my feet up accordingly to have my spot right there. Let's talk about the brushing movement. When we're hitting these topspin dinks, we are brushing up on this ball for topspin. So the one thing you cannot do is try and push these balls. If you push these dinks, you're going to leave some high. You're going to push them wide. So really make sure you're brushing up on that ball to get the topspin to have that ball dip up and then dip back down at your opponent's feet. So when I set everything up, I set up my contact point. So this ball is inside of my left knee. And from here, I'm brushing up on this ball heavily so I can get that topspin movement and that topspin kind of action on the ball. And I'm not pushing through the ball, OK? I should not be making contact with this guy here. I should be brushing up on this ball completely, seeing that ball spin up and out. Quick announcement. I just want to make sure you know about our Attacking Masterclass. It's packed with drills and insights that will show you how to take control of your opponents and attack like a pro so that you can be the most dominant player on the court. It's completely free. Just go to attackmasterclass.com and sign up. Now let's get right back to the video. All right. Now I'm going to hit a couple. See what you guys think. See what Jordan thinks. And here we go. Money. Those are good balls. All right. As you can see there, Caden's hitting some quality shots. One thing that I could tell you on the receiving side, on the receiving end of these things, it's really, really tough, especially as a right-hander. When that ball is top spinning to my backhand, it's a really, really tough ball because it forces me into a tough half volley or it really makes me need to move my feet aggressively back. So this is why this shot is really, really important at a high level and very aggressive. Couple key things as I've been working on this shot. Caden hit some quality rolls there. Just footwork wise, right? We call this the shuffle step. Just like Caden said, the setup is probably one of the most important things for this shot because if your setup isn't right, then you're going to have a really hard time hitting this consistently. So again, we are sliding our right foot in and then my right and my left foot, sorry, is going to be going out just like this. So on the setup, he talked about this ball being inside that right knee and that's really important. We can't be rolling and it's very difficult to get on the outside of the ball when this ball is outside my left knee because then I want you to see my position of my wrist and everything, right? If I actually get here, it's very easy and much more comfortable to get this brushing motion up. The other thing that I would mention as I shuffle over like this is to prepare my paddle below the ball and really low, okay? So I'm going to come here, nice and low here and then as I come up on the ball like this, a lot of the times my follow through will end by my or near my right ear. So it's going to look like this. This is the Topspin Pro. It's a really good device to practice things like this. But again, I'm just going to kind of show you how I practice this with my footwork and also my stroke. So I'm going to take a couple now and we're going to talk about after that some nuances of the shot. All right. Now we're going to talk about some of the nuances of the shot. Obviously, a lot of the times we are hitting the ball cross court because we have more margin and sending that player out wide. Now, one of the things that I've been thinking about is what happens if I set up for this two-hander and it is outside of my left knee. Obviously, when it's way out here, I no longer want to be going cross court because now I'm going to have to use my wrist and it's going to be a lot more inconsistent. So now Caden's going to talk about some variations of when that ball is outside the right knee and you're ready set up to hit a two-hander. Like Jordan said, when this ball is outside of your body, it is hard to get that ball all the way back cross court. So this is an opportunity for you to still use your two-hander, but now we are going to pick different places on the court. So we can look to go middle, we can go up the line. Obviously, up the line can be a little bit more dangerous because someone could be earning. So I would say the highest percentage and the safest shot is definitely middle, but this up the line is not a bad idea as well. The only thing that we really need to change is our paddle path. So typically, like Jordan said, our paddle is going to finish kind of near our right ear. If I tend to now go middle or up the line, my paddle path should be changing with me. It should not be finishing up here. So if I'm kind of going more towards the middle, my paddle path will kind of stop more at my face. And if I'm going up my line, my paddle path will stay up the line and kind of go straight up kind of like a ladder. All right. So I'm throwing these in based off of maybe my positioning, maybe because maybe I am in a good positioning, but I want to mix up that ball a little bit. And of course, if you are really in a pickle where this ball is outside of your body and you feel in a bad position to hit a two hand, that's okay. We can release this second hand and just kind of push up with that one hand if it's comfortable for you. Okay. But this two hander is a shot that you need to use when you're in an offensive position. So you don't really want to get caught hitting two E's back here. All right. Jordan's going to hit me a few dinks. I'm going to hit maybe two cross court, two middle, and then two up the line. Here we go. All right. Really good examples there by Caden. Notice on those examples, you can see here on the screen in slow-mo that his setup again is the most important thing. Trying to get that ball inside his left knee so that he can have good contact. Now I do want to mention something really quick that he just mentioned, but I just want to reiterate on that and also expand on it because there are times, a lot of times, where you may be seeking for this ball and you get a shot that does pull you out a lot further than you thought. And that happens quite often, especially if players are actually hitting topspin back at you. So again, we talked about how when it's outside of that left knee, we don't want to go cross court. The big thing for me when I do this, another indicator when I choose to go middle or down the line is when I'm shuffling and this ball is actually pushing me back. So when my hips have to turn kind of towards my left here, this is when I'll be going more middle or down the line. So it's at least helpful for me because when I turn my hips like this, then if I'm going to go cross court, I really have to go over here. So if you are hitting an angled shuffle step where your left foot is actually going back in the angle, that's a good time to really just go middle and be disciplined there or going down the line. The last thing that I do want to say is that swing speed. We'll do a couple balls here, cross court. As I hit cross court, I can actually kind of swing out on the ball. My swing speed is really, really, you know, it's a lot faster. It's medium to fast. When I go down the line or middle here, okay, again, my swing speed is very, very slow and swing speed has, you know, it has everything to do with how far and the depth on your ball. So it's really important that you're adjusting swing speed depending on the target on the court. All right, guys, as you can see, two hand backhand dink, not as easy as it looks, but I will tell you through my own journey, it's taken me about four months to get really comfortable with this shot. I think we did the math on it. Close to 100 drill sessions of using this backhand dink and really getting comfortable with it. So take your time with it. Don't feel like you have to have it within the first few weeks, months. Take your time. Get after it. See you guys in the next video.