Build a PRO Two-Handed Backhand | World-Class Technique Explained

Guys have you ever wanted to develop your two-handed backhand like Sinner, Alcaraz or Djokovic? Well stay tuned I'm gonna share with you some of the essential biomechanics and technique of the ATP pro backhand right now Hey, I'm here with my buddy Sky. He's an assistant coach here for our summer high-performance camp And I'm also helping him with his game. Sky. How did you develop such an excellent two-handed backhand? I love your backhand What's the secret? And you don't remember anything specific it's just natural Okay Are you just saying that are you just saying it for the camera you actually think about that All right, this guy's very intelligent he's from Tokyo very serious and focused student we're gonna check this thing out and let me see if I can put on my Biomechanical glasses and try to Come up with some tips for you guys that will help you with your backhands because not everybody is as natural as this Let's check this out. Come here. Remember don't miss any balls in the net the nest the enemy I Like it. Can you do it with a little topspin, you know, like a little more Spanish, you know Like not like you're on the Omni courts in Tokyo Okay So you mentioned the left hand I think the left arm like that's very common and good advice So did you ever do any drills like with the left side of your body? you just you just kind of emphasize that a little bit because I think that's excellent a lot of people will like dominate their Two-hander with the the front arm the dominant arm So the more that you can you it may be helpful for you guys back home to think about Using maybe 60% of your non-dominant versus 40% of your dominant And I think that different backhands have different dominance like some backhands are a little more front arm dominant for example Like a famous player like Andre Agassi and then many backhands nowadays have a lot of left arm left side in in the backhand and You know, so I think the more the more wiper you see typically I think that indicates that there's a lot of left arm involvement so it can be a lot of wiper action at the end you tend those are those are the type of backhands that tend to Have a slightly more higher percentage of the non-dominant arm Let's try a few more. It looks pretty good All right. Let's try a few more beautiful Was that in? Okay. Yeah, I tried to get under the little spin Okay, very nice. So I think from from a tips and biomechanical point of view from a technical point of view I'd like to work on and remind and mention to you guys highlight a few things one. Watch how sky Has a beautiful rhythm. So as the ball is coming. He doesn't look abrupt or Jagged, you know, there's no Extreme Movements everything is smooth and he and he sort of brings the racket back with the flow as the balls coming in And his hands sort of synchronized with the ball a lot of good players do that, especially players who played on clay I know you didn't grow up on clay, but a lot of great backhands on tour do that You'll see a synchronization with the hands and the incoming ball. So that's kind of a cool thing So instead of just being like, you know a lot of people are told like get the racket back like old Nick Boll Terry type saying get the racket back or a Lot of players rush to take the racket back and the whole stroke sort of loses rhythm So he has if you watch carefully like a very nice rhythm. Let's let's look at that So you just do that probably naturally like the balls coming in and then you're the racket sort of moves in a like an entrainment with the ball and Then when he gets to the back here, go ahead. Go ahead. Take it through take it through take when he gets to here There's no like there's no stop. There's no abrupt stop. There's no sort of long Pause like a hitch, you know so we had so there's like the balls coming in the racket flows with the ball and then when he gets to a full stretch here and the hands are Pulled back the racket just takes takes a dive or a circle and accelerates through. That's a really nice way to Bring rhythm to your two-handed backhand or one-handed back any kind of any kind of back So it's sort of like this flow and then go very nice like flow and go and There's really you can see that there's no abrupt hitch. There's no There's no strange pause. There's no nothing jagged in the stroke itself Nice, very good We're back another important thing that sky does that a lot many world-class backhands do is if you watch watch this swing here one more Does an excellent job of keeping all the racket work on this side of the body? so some research studies call that to chest side of the body the left side of the body the This side of the body. So if you watch carefully on the backswing good take it back We'll come a little closer so everyone can see he takes it back he has that nice flow that we talked about and then basically he reaches a Wall here and all you guys should work on this back home And pretty much every professional male does this some females cross the plane here? but essentially there's a like a wall here through through the 6 p.m. Side of the body sometimes I say I have the same watch your six be careful Don't let the racket cross the 6 p.m. Mark a lot of a lot of female players do that but even some of the best female players in the world now like if you look at like Coco for example It's got a great back end and you'll see that the the the take back is Compact and everything's and all of the racket work sort of happens on this side of the body the chest side of the body And I really think that that's something all you guys can work on back home It's a very it's what all the pros do at least on the men's side and more and more women are also doing that It gives you a nice compact swing. It allows you to accelerate from a very compact place and so one of the things you could think about is coming through here and then making a little you could think about either like a Little circle here But not a circle going that way as much sometimes I call it like stirring the soup But here dr. Brian Gordon who is a very well-known biomechanist in the tennis world He calls this a hook loop where you go from here and you can you hook down And I think that's another way you guys can think about it. You can think about going from here and hooking down Rather than going around too much. You could think about a little circle here But the key is freeing up the wrist here not being too locked Getting to it to a comfortable point like on on the on this side of the 6 p.m. Maybe 7 p.m Here hands are a little bit away And then there's got to be some acceleration happening here, and you don't want to reach back here crossing the plane So that's really important to get that compact pro back in and sky does that very well So players who are less disciplined and trying to get more more power from their body Then is optimally Biomechanically they they reach back they they get wild with the backswing and that can create timing issue It can give you a lot of power, but it can create timing issues It means that if you're playing someone who hits hard like at a high level you're gonna feel rushed You're gonna have problems with the shot That's how you want to do it. You see that you got that flow you get back into here. You don't come across here It's just flow. Maybe you have a little hook loop here Maybe a little circle here, and then you accelerate through another thing that makes skies backhand Really world-class one of the things if you if you notice the arms when he takes it back the arms are flowing together So if you see both arms there's different ways to configure the arms like The the right can be a little bent the left can be a little straighter sometimes the arms can be almost fully straight together You see that configuration there are different configurations here the configuration that I wouldn't recommend for you guys is Like if the arms are split or on weird angles like this and sometimes you see that you'll see like players bring I've had students who bring the elbows back in kind of a funky way if you notice sky has the arms relatively Straight not parallel and not like that, you know But but relatively straight not not not too too jammed in here and the arms work in coordination together They flow together like sometimes I make a joke like it's like one big arm The arms are working in in In harmony, right? So a lot of lower level two-handed backhands when they take it back you see like splits you see like one elbow going like this you see like You see some funky chicken Chicken wing stuff happening and what skies got locked in here is is he's got both arms Look kind of flowing as a unit and that's really important, too In relation to that you can see as you take it back go ahead stop the hand Well, the hands are on a nice in a nice place slightly away from belly button away from this pouch here on the sweatshirt Many lower level backhands. You'll see stuff like this You'll see like players bringing bringing the brain arms like this and sometimes you can get too straight and locked like some players will get Out here. They'll just lock everything up You know like they'll lock the degrees of freedom if you're familiar with the the Russian Physiologist and biomechanist Nikolai Bernstein. He talked about degrees of freedom and locking You know a lot of players especially lower level players will lock joints in order to get better control of the to manage the degrees Of freedom and so some players will be out here kind of stiff and locked He's got it just right like he's a little bit extended But he's kind of relaxed and he and everything and the arms are working in unison together, it's really nice Like it's almost like they're there. It's almost like you tie them with it with a band and they're just they're just it's just one one arm Working there. So the shoulders are working it you did that low shoulder thing there that time you did So sky and I were talking during one of the breaks here and he was saying sometimes he drops his front shoulder So if any of you guys have that problem Back home that that's definitely something I don't I don't recommend it And you do sometimes see players who dip here and then when they swing go ahead swing through they correct it like so they'll dip Like this and then as they swing They'll they'll adjust the shoulders to be even again at the impact I definitely recommend for you guys try to stay try not to dip too much Don't be a dipper try to stay mostly level here as level as you can and that will help you lift the ball better when you dip like when you dip your shoulder like this on the backswing the hands get higher and many times that can cause a Downward swing balls in the net a lot a lack of topspin unless you correct it So it is possible to do that. But if you if you do that, I prefer you try to correct that too That's another thing but what it was so lovely the way you have that nice rhythm and you have the arms working in unison It's very very nice tip Biomechanical tip or technical tip with sky because we can make a very long video because he does many things well on this back end but I like the way this guy locks in his eyes like a sniper, you know, like a marine sniper like a Army Ranger sniper and his heads very still as he hits through the balls He swings through the ball and that's very very pro Most of the guys on tour and a lot of the females too are locking in their eyes that quiet eye was made famous by Roger Federer and now many other players are doing that and I highly recommend there's a number of psychological benefits There's a lot of research on that in the sports science the quiet eye research By research scientists named Joan Vickers. If you if you're interested in the science Joan Vickers and the quiet eye It's a lot of psychological benefits to keeping your head still in terms of calming the nervous system and helping you focus but there's also many benefits just physically and And technically in terms of the stroke production is you have better balance. You don't have any any You know unnecessary shifting in your body that could cause a misalignment or a Lack of accuracy. So there's a lot of really good reasons to keep your head steady as you swing And I just like how his eyes lock in here and the head stays very quiet as He swings through you should all try to copy that. That's a very important tip for the pro ATP back I hope you guys got a lot of value from these techniques and biomechanical tips I'll see you on the next program. If you like this video check out our other video right here