The two handed backhand is a mistake

Tennis is a game of run and shoot.  When was the last time you saw an Olympic runner with his hands together?  Never, you need two free arms to maximize leg efficiency, they counter-pose, stabilize the spine over the legs.  Watch Roger, he gets a partial step on the two handers, and keeps them in jail.  Roger runs the court better then any of them, he is always a two handed runner with a stable axis of rotation through the spine.  Stable spine, fixed eye position, independent wrist movement, while left hand maintains counter pose balance.

At the moment of impact, Roger's spine is the axis of rotation, but rotational momentum is zero, his spin e stablbe with respect to court surface.   Hence, the left and right arm have their co-linear movement nullified at the spine, the right shoulder, forearm and srist are maximally independent and ontaain them maximum pendulum ratio.

The two hander has moved his axis of rotation  out to his breastbone, his spine has a secondary rotational moment, The two handcer needs  a second, slight step, to adjust the spine back onto the legs.  Baseball batters have that same partial step after the swing.

Roger on the rally

Go dig up a video of Roger, and watch them backhand rallies with the two handers.  Roger watches that partial step to adjust, and times his backhand back to the same spot, while the two hander is just completing his adjustment.  Of necessity, the two hander gets into a oscillation, he cannot let the center be open, he is forced to do the partial step.  Once the oscillation begins, Roger has a wide angle of potential kill shots.  Roger's entire game is eye on impact with stable, zero momentum spine, left hand fine tuning, right wrist take the maximum kinetic energy wave. The right wrist is still fine tunable by Roger, as all the joint are muscle fired in a wave.  Joint movement is maximally independent, and rotational velocity adds up.

Escaping Roger's jail

How? You have to have some sort of one handed backhand, even a weaker one.  It dampens the court oscillation.  Use it when needed to supplement the two hander, its an escape clause.  Better yet, make the two hander the specialized killer shot, use it when speed and power gets you a definite position advantage. That is a fair price for the partial step.


See for yourself in Roger v Rafo.  Watch the coun ter timing on the backhand rallies, see Rafo take that extra adjustment aftr each two hander.