DOHA: For the first time since the
ATP rankings
started 50-years ago, there are no singlehanded backhands in the top-10 this week. The onehanded shot, a vanishing denomination on the Tour, may just be fading away.
A pity, given that it is indeed a shot of rare beauty, underlined by
Roger Federer
not so long ago. China’s Zhang Zhizhen, who scalped an exponent of the single-handed backhand in seventh-seed
Lorenzo Musetti
in the Qatar ExxonMobil Open first round, enjoys watching the shot in full flight.
“The one-hand backhand has a little bit gone out of the tennis stage, less people are learning one-hand backhand, especially people my age,” the 27-year-old said, adding, “When we start tennis nobody is telling you to play one-hand backhand.” Richard Gasquet, a wildcard entrant here, ranked as high as No.7, acknowledged that the two-hander may be the shot of the day.
“The future is more with two -- very powerful, very flat,” said the Frenchman, whose singlehander crackled in Doha. “Many players have this shot. I hope in the future many players can go to the top 10 with one-hand (backhand). It’s important for the game. I think it’s more technical, the one-handed backhand.” Andrey Rublev, the world No.5, weighed in on the pros and cons of the technique.
“Some shots are more difficult, but from another point of view, some shots are more easy with the one-hand backhand,” the Russian said. “Like acceleration or opening the court is more easy with one hand, but some balls, if you play high, is more easy to step in and to play with two hands.” “I don’t think there is better or worse in this. If you’re one-handed, you prefer that,” the 26-year-old said.
“There’s a lot of good players with twohand (backhand), a lot of good players with one-hand, a lot of good players with no backhand at all and a really good forehand. I’m one of them.” Zhang, the China No.1, nicknamed ‘Triple Z’, said the two-hander has given his game greater stability.
“I feel more confident playing twohanded backhand,” he said, adding, “I love to watch the one-hand backhand, it is very nice, the swing is smooth.”
When the first edition of the
ATP
Rankings was released in August 1973, nine of the world’s top-10 played a one-handed backhand. This week there are only two players -- No.11 Stefanos Tsitsipas and No.13 Grigor Dimitrov --who have one-handed backhands in the top 25. Karen Khachanov, the world No.17, hasn’t given what’s quickly becoming a lost art, a thought.
“Everything happens for the first time at some point,” the 27-year-old said. “It’s been quite a few years that there were onehanded backhand players in the top-10, but I think nowadays this is the reality. Sooner or later though somebody with a one-handed backhand will be back in the top-10 also.”
English (US) ·