When Stefanos Tsitsipas dropped out of the world’s top 10 in February this year, tennis purists mourned the final nail in the coffin of the one-handed backhand, once the sport’s signature shot.
It had carried Pete Sampras and Roger Federer to 15 Wimbledon titles between them and was the weapon of choice for Stan Wawrinka when he captured three majors.
Federer described the absence of one-handers in the top 10 as a “dagger” to the sport.
“I felt it. That one was personal. I didn’t like that,” 20-time major winner Federer told GQ magazine when the top 10 was stripped of one-handed backhands for the first time in more than 50 years.
“But at the same time, it makes the one-handers – Pete Sampras, Rod Laver, me – it makes us special as well that we’ve carried the torch, or the flag or whatever, for as long as we did.
“So I love seeing players with one-handers like Stan (Wawrinka) and Richard Gasquet and Tsitsipas. Dominic Thiem has a wonderful one.”
At the moment, only two men in the top 20 have a one-handed backhand – Tsitsipas and Grigor Dimitrov who has since nudged his way back to 10 in the world.
Dominic Thiem, at the 2020 US Open, was the last man to win a Grand Slam with the one-handed backhand.
The 30-year-old has been plagued by wrist injuries ever since and will retire this year.
However, there is hope in the shape of Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti, who has emerged as the man to have removed Federer’s “dagger” with his run to the Wimbledon semi-finals.
“No one taught it to me. It came naturally. When I picked up my first racquet, I played the one-handed backhand. I think I made the right choice. I never wanted to change,” the 22-year-old told reporters.
In a rare match-up of one-handed backhands, Musetti defeated breakout French player Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in the last 16 at the All England Club this year.
Mpetshi Perricard is just 21 and will make his top 50 debut after Wimbledon.
Musetti is already guaranteed to rise to 16 in the rankings next week, providing some company for Dimitrov and Tsitsipas.
He has hit more backhand winners at Wimbledon – 43 – than any of the other three semi-finalists. Today, Musetti faces Novak Djokovic for a place in the final.
Djokovic, chasing a record-equalling eighth Wimbledon crown and 25th major, started his career hitting one-handed backhands.
“My former coach, Jelena Gencic, she actually wanted me to play with one hand,” he said.
“I was feeling very weak because most of the kids at that stage, they were sending a lot of high balls to my backhand, so I would start supporting it with the left. That’s how I started playing with two.”
Despite Musetti’s presence in the semi-finals, rivals believe that there will be no mass return to the one-hander.
World number four and recent French Open runner-up Alexander Zverev has employed a two-handed backhand since he was 10 years old.
“I think in the modern game, a double-handed backhand has more advantages. It is maybe a less beautiful shot, as everybody says, but it is more effective,” said Zverev. For Zverev, the one-handed backhand remains on life support.
“I think the game is getting too fast for a single-handed backhand. It is visually a much more beautiful shot but it is more difficult to control that shot when the ball is coming at you at 140 miles an hour.
“If you have two hands, it’s easier to control that ball. In my opinion, tennis is getting faster and faster. If you look at how (Carlos) Alcaraz and (Jannik) Sinner are hitting the ball, I prefer to have two hands on the racquet against that.”
