How I Actually Hit My Two-Handed Backhand

All right, first things first, we got to talk grip. Now, I have a fairly strong right grip, meaning that it's not like on the continental side here so much. It's a little more turn, so you have this knuckle right here on this bevel, almost like a one-hander. You know, like I have actually a fairly good one-hander because of my right hand grip. My left hand grip is pretty normal here, just like a kind of like a half continental, maybe a little more turn, but just, you know, this knuckle right here on this bevel from the back and this one just slightly more turn here. So, I have like this position, this strong position. That is what makes my backhand be a little bit more right side dominant, which we will cover. I know this is the controversial thing and everyone's like left hand, right hand, we'll cover that stuff. So, I just want to show you, because of my grip, how actually similar my backhand looks to a one-hander. If you just remove my left hand, it's a lot more like a one-hander than kind of like a lefty forehand, okay? So, if you see here, just my normal two-hander, boom, and then my one-hander, the path that the racket travels here, you see like from here to about like here, it's very similar to a one-hander, right? I'm dropping it to the slot, maybe not so exaggerated like a one-hander, but it drops into the slot here and it comes through with a lot of force this way, but obviously the left side is helping with everything here. The left side is helping time that better, strength through it, speed through the contact. I don't want to do this with my backhand, right? I want to do and that's grip. All right, let's move on to the swing, okay? Honestly, it's pretty simple. From my ready position, right? I have my forehand grip and my backhand grip like this and I just switch like this. That's kind of like how I get there, okay? And all I'm trying to do is turn my shoulders and have the racket just out here. I don't like the racket to be closed. I think you see a lot of backhands where the guys take it like with the closed face like this. Usually it's too much left hand on and I like it a little bit more open. See my wrists are kind of broken here, but not really thinking about that. The grip takes care of that. I'm just trying to get to this position, right? Like I'm going to turn my shoulders, I'm going to see the racket a little bit on my peripheral here. I don't want it too far behind me because then I can't really, I don't have anywhere else to go. I want to be here so when I go into hitting the ball it can still go back a little bit as I'm like kind of bringing forward, right? But it's a very simple thing. From here turn the shoulders and obviously I'm going to continue to move, right? I'm going to continue to move wherever I need to go. But this is going to happen very quickly. The upper body and the lower body for now are disconnected until I have to hit the ball. A little thing I pay attention to is like where am I going to hit the ball height wise, right? Where I'm making contact with the ball and I want my take back to just be a little bit higher than that. So I can still use kind of gravity once the racket drops here. I'm not fighting it like this. It can drop and I'm driving. I'm still feeling more of a drive on the backhand side. I'm not trying to overly go high to low, but that's just something I've always done. Just starting above the line of the ball. Obviously that changes depending on the shot that's coming to you, but pretty simple thing that should help you as well with like just the timing of everything. Number one thing is here. Number two here I'm out and then my shoulder is just turning, right? And that's it. And then from here it's where we're going to connect the lower body. That's where the magic starts happening. My backhand side has always been a little bit more natural. Not because of the swing, not because of the upper body technique, but because I always felt the shot from the ground up more. I think on the forehand side I feel my arms a lot, but on the backhand side I feel the push really well. I've always felt that the transfer of weight to be really easy and natural on that side. A good backhand has power from the left leg and the left hips, okay? This is where the magic happens. You should be able to actually hit a backhand just like on one leg like this. There. Yeah, bitch. Power. There. Alright, you see that push from the left has always been something that's super natural to me. So the thing that I do really well is that when I start my take back, I never do this. Unless I really need to back up, right? If I'm backing up, okay, but if I'm just hitting a neutral ball where I don't have to back up, my swing starts, it's gonna be anchored with my left leg. So I'm gonna go like this and then I'm gonna hit. So you see I step out and then I hit. Now obviously, depending on the shot, I gotta move a little bit more, but still I'm gonna step out and hit. That timing of this step into this step or just this step into the hit is what makes my backhand look kind of effortless and easy. If you just see here, just feed me some backhands, you see like I would turn and you see how I'm always stepping out. Boom. It's all anchored in this back leg. Back, boom, push. Back, boom. It's just timing that. A little wider, boom. See how strong I am on that side. Wow, that was nice. So that creates that coiling, right? And then that explosion into the ball. But if done right, it just kind of looks easy. It's like, oh, it doesn't look like he's trying, but I am. It's just timed properly. So when my backhand feels bad, usually I'm not doing that like well enough. I'm not focused enough on like really getting into that aggressive position. I end up maybe leaning into this leg a little bit too much, right? So feed me a couple here. Like I get into this right leg too quickly, I'm kind of locked, right? If I just turn like this, it's kind of hard, right? If this leg goes back and then I try to hit like this, it's just harder. See how I'm like pretty locked here, where if I just stay a little more open and then I sort of step and hit and I time that well, open, boom. That comes off a lot stronger. All right, the next thing that makes my backhand that efficient and just easy and repeatable is that I'm great at picking my stances. On my forehand side, it's just not as natural. Sometimes I don't know if I want to go closed stance, open stance, semi-open stance or on the backhand side, for whatever reason, it just flows natural. So we have obviously our closed stance here, boom. We have our open stance when we're having to go really wide, and then a little bit more of a semi-open stance when you're kind of having to deal with the power of a shot or if the ball is a little bit high here and you have to do that. So those three stances, if you pick them right for each shot that's being hit to you, it's going to help a lot. For the closed stance, very simple, right? Any shot that I have the time to step in, I should be stepping in, right? So if he's feeding me a ball, I have plenty of time here, I need to step in, I need to feel that boom, that move. I have plenty of time. Open stance, it's usually when that ball is coming fast, it's going wide, you're having to run, you're not gonna have the time. Sometimes you might do this, but for the most part, you're gonna be here, you're gonna allow yourself to just get to that open stance, recover. So go a little faster there, boom, and I can just get there, move. See how it's anchored on my, it's really anchored on my left leg, that shot. I was firing my hips strong here because then I have to push that way. The semi-open, I tend to go a little more often when the ball is coming like high at me or right at me. So yeah, you see, anchored. It's okay if it feels like I'm falling back, I'm not. I'm still pushing forward, my hips are still firing to the target, even if I'm rotating a little bit more. And guys, it's a quick break here to thank today's video sponsor, Monarch. So even as a YouTuber, I'm technically a small business owner. I have income from YouTube and social media, from sponsors, from playing tennis, from lessons, from just different projects, but also expenses coming from just as many places. And keeping track of all of it can be pretty overwhelming, plus I'm not an admin work guy, I hate doing admin work. So that's why I've been using Monarch. I can connect my different accounts and credit cards and see everything in one place instead of checking a bunch of different apps. With what I do, my expenses and my income can look very different from month to month. So Monarch makes it easy to see where my money is actually going and also to keep everything organized. It's not a bank, it does not move your money. It just gives you a much clearer way to track and plan across your existing accounts. Just having all of that in one place so I don't have to spend a lot of my day doing admin work and checking a bunch of different accounts really helps me. So if you want a better picture of where your money is going, you can try Monarch at monarch.com slash ks50 or use code ks50 for 50% off Monarch core tier. Go check Monarch out, link in the description. All right, now we're getting to the fun part, actually hitting the ball, right? You've got the grip, you've got your take back, you're locked in on your left leg, you're moving towards the right leg here, transferring that weight and then we got our contact point. Now I want my contact point to always be, or as much as I can, like right in front of my right hip, right? If it gets behind me here, if it gets behind me here, I need to put a lot more left hand through that shot. Now it's gonna happen in certain shots but for the most part, I want that thing right here. Again, almost like a one-hander, right? Like I'd be hitting here, I'll be hitting right around here as well. I just think sometimes people are trying to hit way too far there versus more right here, more in the pocket. Again, almost like you're hitting like a baseball, like you're trying to club it, like right here. If you're too far there, you don't have the strength. If you're here, you're a little stronger. Again, something you see, not just with my backhand, but some of the better backhands is that, you know, I'm at contact here, right? I don't want this to happen. This is not happening. I want that roll through. See the face of the racket continues to point out into the court, then out this way, right? But I never fully like flicked it. None of this. It's coming back here, see? Accelerate and hitting and it's rolling through it. Those wrists are rolling through it. My grip allows me that roll to be a little bit more natural. And the final thing here before we go, you know, right hand, left hand, the controversial part of this is rhythm, right? Like I, again, the reason why it flows so well and my backhand looks so effortless, it just has good rhythm, right? Like I time everything properly. Everything is just like, feels like it's in unison, you know, like boom, boom, boom. There's a rhythm to it. Left, right, hit, you know, left, right, hit. On the forehand side, sometimes I just don't feel this as well, you know, and it just doesn't flow so naturally. Where on the backhand side is just, the rhythm is just a little bit better, okay? And making sure I'm hitting the ball in the middle of the strings. It sounds like almost stupid to say, but I do think that a lot of people who focus a lot on technique have just bad contact. So I'll see players that have, oh, your technique is good and then you feed them some balls and the contact point is all over the place. What happens here doesn't matter if what happens in front of you is bad, if the contact point is bad. It's not going to work. Now, we've talked about this a good amount so far, but let's just put an end to the whole right side, left side, right hand, left hand, all right? I'm never talking just about hands, all right? It's never a right hand versus a left hand. It's the right side and the left side and how they're working together to hit the ball, right? Like think about if you're having to throw a medicine ball that was very heavy, right? Like you're not gonna just, you're gonna have to use both hands kind of together here to throw it, right? For someone who has the grip like me, a little bit more on the, on the like kind of over more, I guess would be called a little bit more western on the back end, you're gonna have just a stronger right side by nature. It's just going to happen. If you have a grip that is a little bit more, more flat, more continental, the natural tendency is for that string to be a little bit more wide and you're kind of pushing, guiding the ball a little bit more. You're not fully like dropping into the slot here and hitting. You're kind of guiding that a little bit more with the left hand. Now, the trouble a lot of players get is that sometimes they're trying to hit the back and a little bit more like me in that sense just feeling like it's more of like a right side dominant shot, but the right hand grip is a little bit too continental and you're gonna see this sort of chicken wing happening here because this wrist is a little restricted in terms of rolling, right? If I roll it too much, it's just gonna go down, right? And if I'm a little bit more here, I'm a little flat through it. If I'm too here and I roll my wrist, that ball is going straight down, right? So, you're gonna see guys going like this a lot, right? If you watch like, I think a good one, I mean nothing by this, but like if you watch Ben Shelton's back and you see how he's trying to be kind of aggressive and then he does a lot of this sort of at the end and you see that this kind of takes some of the juice away from the ball because it's coming in like way too righty. He's a lefty and you see that juice coming out of the shot very often. I actually think if he just like extended that right side a little bit more, but I think he would have to correct the grip a little bit, he would get just a little bit more pop through the backhand side and wouldn't feel so much like this. So, really comes down to like what grip you play with, you're gonna feel one of the sides a little bit more. I think the better backhands in the world are a little bit more on the right side. There's great backhands that are bunty, redirecting, that you can be very effective. Like I love the way Tiafoe uses his backhand. It's very bunty, very kind of on the left side, but he takes it early. He like uses that ball, keeps it low, comes in off that. I think he does a great job using it. It's all personal preference. I do find it that players have a little bit more control doing what I do than sort of like the guy he shot. More amateurs, I mean. So, that's kind of really what it is on the kind of right side versus backhand side. Don't worry too much about it. I just think both have to work together here. Otherwise, like you're gonna have a weak backhand. Most of you are not ambidextrous that you're gonna have a lot of strength on this side. So, you're gonna need your dominant side to help as well. So, of course, you don't need to copy everything about my backhand, but if you just go through like the checklist for me, the grip gives me the structure that I want, gives me the racket face, a contact point, the left leg and hip starts and organizes the shot, the right side is extremely strong through contact, the left side adds acceleration and adjustments, wrist roll creates the spin, stance changes depending on the incoming ball, keep the the shot flowing and ultimately rhythm organizes everything. And remember the goal is not to create this pretty and perfect aesthetic backhand. It's to make sure you have rhythm, that you're catching the ball clean and you're just actually making life a lot easier on the backhand side. However it is that it looks for you, hopefully some of these tips help you as well. You can copy all of them. Maybe, you know, send me a video if your backhand starts looking like mine. I'd like to see it. Thanks for watching and I'll see you guys on the next one.