ROGER EXPLAINS 🎤 Why the One-Handed Backhand is Dying Out 🎾

No player with the one-handed backhand makes the semi-finals at this year's US Open. It is said to be the first time in tennis history that it hasn't happened for an entire calendar year. What's your breakdown? Majors. Just slams, yeah. Yeah, no semi-finalists. No semi-finalists. So if you think back like last year Musetti at RG for example and it's just been this long lineage of at least somebody gets there. So if that streak ends, I mean what's your overall breakdown for why that shot has become so difficult in the modern game where we're seeing it so little? Yeah, good tough question. I don't know. That's why I'm maybe practicing with Musetti this afternoon in an hour. Making sure he's ready. You know, give him some wisdom. I don't know. I don't know. Obviously we'll see a straw and everything. But no, of course I love seeing one-handers do well. I think I was doing an interview this morning actually and it reminded me that my coaches when I was growing up were I would say 90% one-handers. So I think when your coach is a one-handed tennis player you will be most likely a one-handed tennis player too. I don't know. That's just a little bit of a feel I'm getting. Now, nowadays probably the coaches are mostly double-handed players, right? And it's just easier to teach a kid to have two hands on the backhand side just because I have one of my kids he's switching from a double-hander to a one-hander and I just see how hard it is for him to hit it and to control it and sure eventually you get control but it just takes time, right? And nowadays we don't have time. Everything has to happen immediately. If you do technical changes it takes too long and it's too frustrating so might as well just stick with what you have and I think that's also one of the reasons we see a lot of double handers and then you add racket technology, string technology, maybe the slowness of maybe the tennis balls and the courts nowadays and just that we're working less maybe potentially on transition, less on volleys, whereas maybe back in the day I used to do 50-50 volleys and net play and baseline game and before my time it probably was like 80% net play and 20% baseline drills and now it's like 90-10, right? Just baseline and that's why I think the double hander just allows you especially with the open stance sliding like what we've seen Rafa do and Novak do that it's amazing how you are able to defend out of that side because before we had the feeling that you were short on the backhand side if you had two hands and the one-hander was an advantage there which it seems like it's not naturally the case anymore. Now I don't know how much also people get injured more with double handed backhands because you always hear about left-handed wrists as if you're righty with the flick how that ends up creating problems as well but I don't think that's going to stop anybody from hitting double handers and I just think the accumulation of all that has created that we've seen so many more double handers you know it's just an easier shot to learn I think when you're younger but I'm still hopeful it's not the end you know.