In February 2024, for the first time since the tour began tracking rankings in 1973, the men’s elite contained not a single player who used a one-handed backhand.
That absence is more than a curious statistic. It is a visible break in the technical language of professional tennis. The one-handed backhand once belonged to champions, stylists, and complete-court players. It was a mark of fluency: a stroke that could drive through the court, carve a low slice, absorb pace, disguise a drop shot, and turn defense into something almost theatrical.
Now, at the highest level, it has become an endangered dialect.
The one-handed vs two-handed backhand tennis debate is often presented as a clash between beauty and efficiency. That is too simple. The real argument is about what the modern game asks of the body, how quickly a player must prepare, where contact must occur, and how much risk a technique can carry before it starts to dictate the tactics around it.
The one-handed backhand has not disappeared. But its place has changed. It is no longer the default foundation of a complete player’s game. It is a specialization, a gamble, and sometimes an aesthetic commitment made against the statistical current.
The Statistical Silence of the Top 10
A top-10 ranking is not a laboratory experiment, but it is an unusually clear record of what professional tennis currently rewards. The players who occupy that space must survive every surface, every return pattern, every change of pace, and the repeated physical stress of the tour. They need a backhand that remains functional when the ball is heavy, high, fast, late, or directed repeatedly at the same corner.
In February 2024, none of them used a one-handed backhand.
That does not mean the one-hander suddenly became ineffective. It means that the qualities it offers are no longer enough to offset the demands it creates at the highest level. A stroke can be beautiful, dangerous, and capable of winning points while still making a player’s average rally more difficult.
This is the central distinction in the aesthetic-versus-efficiency argument. The one-handed backhand can produce shots that are difficult to imitate with two hands:
- A long, accelerating swing that creates penetration without looking hurried.
- A slice that stays low and travels through the court rather than sitting up.
- A change of height and speed that interrupts a baseline rhythm.
- A natural transition into a volley or approach shot.
- A wide range of contact points, particularly when the player has time to extend through the ball.
But elite tennis is not judged by the best version of a shot. It is judged by the shot that survives the worst moments. The question is not whether a one-hander can hit a spectacular winner. It can. The question is whether it can be prepared and repeated when the opponent is hitting heavy topspin at the backhand corner, serving into the body, and taking the ball early.
The two-hander is usually better at this kind of repetition. The second hand reduces the amount of the stroke that must be controlled by one arm and one shoulder. It helps a player block, redirect, and stabilize the racket face when there is no time to create a full swing. Its advantage is not always spectacular. More often, it is quietly cumulative.
That quiet accumulation matters. A two-handed backhand may not produce the same visual sweep, but it can keep a player from losing ground in a rally. It can turn a difficult return into a neutral ball. It can meet a high-bouncing forehand without requiring the player to retreat several steps. It can absorb pace with fewer moving parts.
The top 10 is therefore not announcing that elegance has no place in tennis. It is showing which form of reliability has become most valuable.
The single-hander is a question of elegant geometry; the double-hander is an answer to brutal physics.
There is also a developmental explanation. Young players are introduced to a game built around heavy topspin, high racket-head speed, and aggressive returns. Coaches are not choosing between two equally common traditions in a vacuum. They are preparing athletes for the patterns that dominate modern competition. The two-handed backhand gives a developing player an earlier sense of stability and makes it easier to handle pace before the rest of the game has fully matured.
That early advantage can become a permanent one. Once a player builds a return, a defensive system, and a baseline identity around the two-hander, the technical path is reinforced at every level. By the time a one-handed backhand might offer a tactical benefit, most players have already been trained toward a different solution.
Biomechanical Divergence: The Physics of the Swing
The core of the debate is not taste. It is torque, leverage, timing, and contact.
A 2002 study published in the Journal of Sports Sciences measured a tangible difference between the two strokes. At the completion of the backswing, the one-handed backhand required significantly greater shoulder rotation: an average of 119.1 degrees compared with 83.4 degrees for the two-handed version. The ball was also struck farther in front of the body with the single-hander, at 0.59 meters compared with 0.40 meters for the two-handed backhand.
Those measurements explain much of the modern argument. The one-hander asks the body to create and control a larger movement. The player must turn, set the racket, establish the contact point, and then accelerate through the ball with enough structure to prevent the stroke from collapsing. When the timing is right, the result is one of the most complete movements in tennis. When the timing is late, the same freedom becomes exposure.
The extended contact point is both the stroke’s poetry and its peril. It allows the player to drive through the ball with a long lever and to create a particularly penetrating slice. It also demands that the player organize the body earlier. A contact point that is too close to the body can rob the shot of stability; one that is too far in front can make the swing feel disconnected from the legs and trunk.
The two-handed backhand works through a different arrangement of forces. The non-dominant hand contributes more directly to the acceleration, while the dominant hand helps guide and stabilize the racket. The swing can be shorter without becoming passive. The racket can be prepared close to the body and still arrive with enough structure to redirect a fast ball.
This is especially important against modern topspin. A ball that rises toward the shoulder does not simply require strength. It requires a player to get the racket face into position quickly and to control the ball without allowing the upper body to drift backward. The two-hander offers a compact response. It can be used to drive, roll, block, or take the ball early without changing the entire architecture of the stroke.
The one-hander has answers of its own. A player can take the ball earlier, use a closed stance, shorten the backswing, or rely on a slice when the height becomes uncomfortable. But those solutions require a broader tactical vocabulary and a high degree of anticipation. The player is not only executing a backhand. The player is constantly deciding which version of the backhand the incoming ball permits.
That burden becomes clearer when the stroke is broken into its common situations:
| Match situation | One-handed backhand | Two-handed backhand |
|---|---|---|
| Heavy ball to the shoulder | Often requires earlier preparation, a retreat, or a slice response | More stable for rolling or driving the ball at shoulder height |
| Fast ball at the body | Can be difficult to organize without space | Compact grip provides a reliable blocking position |
| Low ball | Excellent slice potential and reach | Strong drive, though it may require more knee bend and adjustment |
| Return of serve | Demands precise timing and a clear contact point | Easier to compact and redirect under pressure |
| Approach shot | Natural transition into a slice or volley | Effective, but often needs a separate transition movement |
| Defensive stretch | Long reach and slice can preserve the point | Two hands offer stability, though reach may feel more restricted |
| High-risk attack | Can produce exceptional pace and angle | More repeatable, with a generally larger margin for error |
No row in this table declares a universal winner. The one-hander remains superior in some specific exchanges, especially when variation, reach, or transition play matters. The problem is that the modern match contains fewer points in which those advantages can be isolated from the rest of the physical workload.
The stroke also places different demands on the shoulder, wrist, and forearm. That does not make every one-handed player injury-prone, and it would be careless to reduce a player’s medical history to technique. Injuries have many causes: workload, movement patterns, equipment, previous damage, and simple bad luck. Still, the one-hander gives the hitting arm a more visible role in controlling the racket through a long, high-speed movement. When the timing is compromised, the arm often has to solve a problem that the legs and trunk should have solved earlier.
The result is a stroke with a narrow margin for technical laziness. A two-hander can sometimes rescue an imperfect preparation. A one-hander more often exposes it.
The Return of Serve and the Modern Power Game
The return of serve is where the one-handed backhand’s disadvantages become most difficult to hide.
A baseline rally gives a player at least some opportunity to read the ball, establish a rhythm, and choose between drive and slice. The return offers almost none of that. The server controls the speed, height, direction, and timing. The returner must split-step, identify the serve, prepare the racket, and make contact before the ball has moved deep into the court.
Against a serve above 120 miles per hour, a two-handed grip acts as a form of structural insurance. The player can take the racket back compactly, keep the hands connected to the body, and use the pace already present in the ball. The motion does not need to be large to be effective. A short, firm swing can send the return deep enough to begin the point.
A one-handed return can also be dangerous. When timed perfectly, it has a clean, piercing quality, particularly down the line. It can absorb pace and redirect the ball with minimal backswing. But the margin is thinner. The player must manage the racket face with one arm while preserving enough acceleration to prevent the return from floating short. A slight delay can turn an aggressive response into a defensive chip, and a defensive chip against a modern first serve often leaves the returner under immediate pressure.
The issue is not only the speed of the serve. It is the serve’s location. A body serve jams the returner and removes the space in which a one-handed swing can develop. A wide serve pulls the player away from the ideal contact point. A kick serve to the backhand can force the player to deal with height and lateral movement at the same time. The two-hander is not immune to these problems, but its shorter lever and two-arm structure tend to provide more available responses.
This is one reason the return has become a decisive part of the one handed backhand aesthetic vs efficiency discussion. The one-hander may look more complete during a controlled rally, yet the two-hander often gives its owner a better chance of simply starting the point on acceptable terms.
The modern power game also punishes a weak second ball. If a return lands short, the opponent does not need to produce a miracle. A heavy forehand into the open court is enough. Players with one-handed backhands therefore often build their strategies around preventing the return from becoming a predictable target. They may stand farther back, chip more frequently, attack the net after a good return, or rely on a serve strong enough to stop the opponent from applying immediate pressure.
This is not necessarily a flaw. It is a tactical identity. But it narrows the number of matches in which the player can use the backhand freely. The stroke becomes tied to the quality of the serve, the position of the return, and the player’s ability to take the initiative before the opponent can begin the familiar high, heavy exchange.
The one-hander can still be an offensive weapon. It can redirect pace down the line, change direction earlier than an opponent expects, and create a sharp contrast with a deep forehand. Yet it tends to reward initiative more than passivity. The player wants to be the one choosing the contact point, not the one reacting to a ball that has already risen above the shoulder.
That distinction separates a beautiful shot from a sustainable match pattern.
Dominic Thiem and the Last Stand of the Single-Hander
The narrative finds its most poignant benchmark in Dominic Thiem’s 2020 US Open victory. It remains the most recent men’s major title won by a player with a one-handed backhand, and it gives the debate a precise historical marker.
Thiem’s backhand was not a decorative survival mechanism. It was a central part of his attack. He could strike it with enormous topspin, take the ball high, open the court crosscourt, and change direction down the line with enough pace to make the shot a point-ending weapon. The swing had violence in it, but it was organized violence: a full-body movement that connected the legs, torso, shoulder, and arm.
His success mattered because it challenged the lazy version of the argument. The one-hander was not merely a slice used by an artist who preferred touch to force. Thiem used it to produce the kind of weight that modern baseline tennis demands. He could engage in long exchanges and still threaten to end them with the backhand.
The 2020 US Open title therefore looked, for a moment, like evidence that the single-hander could adapt. It was not an antique being carried ceremonially through a power era. It was a contemporary weapon in the hands of an athlete capable of matching the modern game physically and tactically.
But the victory also became a kind of closing chapter. Thiem did not begin a wider resurgence. The players who followed him to the top—Daniil Medvedev, Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and Novak Djokovic among them—built their baseline dominance around two-handed backhands. Their games are different in almost every other respect, but they share the same basic answer to high-speed exchange: two hands, early preparation, and the ability to redirect the ball without needing a large backswing.
Thiem’s subsequent wrist problems deepened the symbolism, although symbolism should not be confused with proof. His injuries cannot be reduced to the fact that he played a one-handed backhand. Professional tennis produces injuries through accumulated workload, movement stress, falls, equipment, and individual physiology. Still, the wrist is an important part of a one-handed mechanic, and the association is difficult for observers to ignore.
His career illustrates the central paradox of the stroke. The one-hander can be powerful enough to win a major, but building an entire career around that power may require physical and technical resources that very few players possess. It asks for earlier preparation, cleaner spacing, greater tolerance for variation, and the courage to keep swinging when a safer option is available.
Thiem’s victory was not proof that the one-hander had found a new mainstream. It was proof that a gifted player could make the old language sound fully modern.
The Endangered Six: Life in the ATP Top 100
The scarcity becomes even clearer outside the top 10. As of late 2024, only six players in the ATP top 100 continued to use the one-handed backhand: Stefanos Tsitsipas, Lorenzo Musetti, Denis Shapovalov, Daniel Altmaier, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, and Aleksandar Kovacevic.
They do not represent one unified style. Their backhands serve different games, and their reasons for surviving with the stroke are not interchangeable.
| Player | Primary surface strength | Backhand role |
|---|---|---|
| Stefanos Tsitsipas | Clay and hard court | An offensive weapon built around heavy topspin, acceleration, and the ability to open the court. |
| Lorenzo Musetti | Clay | A source of variety, touch, changes of height, and disguised slice or drop-shot patterns. |
| Denis Shapovalov | Hard court | An explosive, high-risk swing capable of producing flat pace and sudden direction changes. |
| Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard | Hard court | A distinctive part of serve-plus-one patterns, supported by reach and a powerful overall game. |
| Daniel Altmaier | Clay | A rally tool that helps him absorb and redirect pace within a physically demanding baseline game. |
| Aleksandar Kovacevic | Hard court | A flexible weapon used alongside serve, movement, and first-strike patterns rather than as a universal solution. |
For Tsitsipas and Musetti, the backhand is part of the player’s identity. It does not merely survive inside their games; it gives those games their shape. Tsitsipas uses it to attack and to create the kind of heavy, angular exchange that can pull an opponent away from the court. Musetti uses his to vary the rhythm, alter the height of the rally, and make the opponent hesitate between a high ball, a slice, and a sudden change of direction.
Shapovalov’s version is different again. It can be breathtaking and unstable in the same afternoon. The swing generates pace and carries the possibility of an immediate attack, but it also demands a level of timing that can disappear when the player is stretched or rushed. His backhand embodies the risk-reward nature of the one-hander more visibly than almost anyone on tour.
Mpetshi Perricard represents another path. His height, serve, and first-strike intentions allow the one-handed backhand to function within a game that often begins with immediate pressure. He does not need the stroke to carry every neutral rally. It can serve a particular purpose in a larger structure built around serve quality and the first ball after the serve.
Altmaier and Kovacevic show that the stroke does not need to be a highlight generator to remain useful. A one-hander can be a stabilizing tool, a way to redirect, vary the pace, or preserve a point when the player has enough time to organize. But its role is often more clearly defined than it was in earlier generations. It must fit a tactical plan.
That is the significant change. The one-hander used to be part of the assumed vocabulary of an elite all-court player. Now, a player who uses it generally needs a reason for every surrounding choice:
1. The serve must create easier first-ball conditions. A strong serve can reduce the number of defensive backhands required at the beginning of a point.
2. The return position must be carefully managed. Standing too close can leave no room for the swing; standing too far back can surrender court position.
3. The slice has to be more than a bailout. It must change the geometry of the rally, keep the ball low, or buy time for a transition.
4. The forehand must carry a large share of the offensive burden. When the backhand is under pressure, the forehand is often the tool used to regain initiative.
5. Movement must compensate for timing demands. The player needs enough anticipation and footwork to reach the contact point before it becomes a rescue operation.
6. The player must accept tactical asymmetry. Not every side of the court can be defended or attacked in exactly the same way.
This is why the answer to “is the one-handed backhand dying?” is both yes and no. As a mass technique, it is declining. As a high-level specialist tool, it remains alive. The number of players using it may continue to shrink, but the stroke will not vanish as long as it can still create strategic possibilities that a two-hander cannot reproduce in quite the same way.
Aesthetic Soul or Tactical Relic?
The cultural debate persists because tennis is unusually attached to movement as spectacle. The one-handed backhand connects the contemporary court to a visible lineage: Ken Rosewall’s economy, Gustavo Kuerten’s athletic violence, Roger Federer’s effortless acceleration. Its decline feels like the loss of a dialect, not merely the replacement of one grip with another.
That emotional response is not foolish. Technique is part of tennis history. It shapes the way players look, the way matches are remembered, and the way spectators understand the relationship between risk and control. A one-handed backhand can make a player’s game feel spacious. It creates pauses in a sport increasingly defined by compressed time.
But the court is not a museum. It is a laboratory of adaptation.
Rackets, strings, training methods, movement patterns, and tactical expectations have changed together. The ball is struck earlier and with more spin. Players are physically prepared to sustain exchanges that once would have been considered exceptional. The return is more aggressive. The high backhand corner is attacked with a consistency that makes any technical weakness easier to locate.
The two-handed backhand answers that environment with a particular kind of practicality. It is not necessarily more beautiful, but it is more forgiving in the moments modern tennis produces most often. It allows players to defend without surrendering immediately, to take the ball early, and to redirect pace with a compact movement.
The one-hander, by contrast, asks for commitment. It rewards players who see the ball early, move decisively, and understand how to use variation before the opponent can establish a repetitive pattern. Its greatest weakness is also its most compelling quality: it cannot be reduced to a single function. It is a drive, a slice, a transition shot, a return, and sometimes an improvisation.
That complexity is why the stroke still matters. Its future will not be secured by nostalgia, and it will not be decided by a single ranking snapshot. It will depend on whether coaches and players can continue to discover tactical environments in which the one-hander’s advantages outweigh its costs.
For now, the evidence points in one direction. The single-handed backhand is no longer the broad road to the top of men’s tennis. It is a narrow route taken by players with unusual timing, movement, touch, power, or conviction. Those who choose it are not simply preserving an old tradition. They are accepting a different set of problems and trying to turn those problems into an identity.
The stroke survives in the hands of virtuosos, artists, and specialists. It asks more than it promises, but what it promises remains distinctive: space, variation, reach, and the possibility of making force look like form.
When Lorenzo Musetti flicks a backhand drop shot with impossible delicacy, the shot is not evidence that the past has returned. It is evidence that the present still contains more than one answer. The one-handed backhand may be losing its place as a default technique, but it has not lost its meaning.
The debate continues because tennis is still deciding whether efficiency should be the final measure of a stroke—or merely the condition that makes beauty worth defending.