Why Your Non-Dominant Hand Holds the Key to a Match-Ready Backhand

The 2 handed Backhand is one of the most steady, reliable, simplistic, and least complicated shot in the sport of tennis.

Why?

Well to be honest, there is not much that can go wrong with this shot. Understanding of course the proper mechanics and stroke production.

The 2 handed stroke can only do so much. In turn, this becomes a benefit and a crutch. The benefit lies in the fact that since it typically is not used as a weapon (barring those outlier backhands of Djokovic, Rafa, etc), makes it ultra-steady in it's ability to be hit. This also results in a lack of ability to fail which will thus maintain the steadiness of the stroke.

On the contrary, a lack of proper technical and mechanical development will leave players frustrated, confused, and often with a lot of resentment towards the massively reliable stroke.

From personal experience, I used to hate my 2 handed backhand growing up.

I couldn’t trust it when I needed it most. It wasn’t for a lack of effort, but rather for some missing foundational components. Here's what I've gathered over the majority of my playing and coaching career that took my 2-handed backhand from a "bland" neutral roller, to a reliable, counter-punching and weaponized part of my tennis toolkit in my mid 20s. These few steps turned my backhand into an asset and transformed my game completely as I was attempting the USTA and ITF Pro Circuits.

1. The NON-DOMINANT hand.

For reasons unknown.... My Coaches in my junior career didn't stress enough about the value and deliberate nature of my non-dominant hand. At least not as much as I make my current students aware of its importance.

I currently coach students to acknowledge and understand that their non-dominant hand will do anywhere from 80-90% of the effort required on their 2-handed backhand.

Applications:

• Work on a forehand stroke with your non-dominant hand using simple hand-fed balls or a practice wall.

• It’ll feel awkward at first and rather uncomfortable. The focus should be to stay patient and pay careful attention to pushing the hand forward and building the feeling of extension through contact. Not using a full swing will be a helpful part of this development.

• Think feeling over form. This builds the foundation for a stronger 2-handed backhand with the repetition.

2. Take the Pinky Off

Another way to get the feeling of your non-dominant hand more involved in the stroke, you need to let the dominant hand relax. Hold the racket, just lower than normal so that the pinky of your dominant hand (bottom hand) hangs off the handle. This limits how much the dominant-hand can actually have an influence on the stroke.

Applications:

• You’ll still hit full backhands, but your non-dominant hand will do most of the work.

• Aim for an 80-20 ratio of non-dominant to dominant hand engagement. This can be achieved by an intentional squeeze intensity of the left hand being stronger than the right hand on the handle of the racket.

• This is best practiced with hand-fed balls or a practice wall. However, it can also be worked on in a live ball rally situation if your partner is able to keep the balls low and within your strike zone.

3. Keep Your Head Down

This step is often overlooked as it's hard to gauge in normal rally settings. It's typically found with footage that can be slowed down to precisely find the moments just before and during contact to see what the head is doing at those times.

It's quite possible that as your racket is progressing from your backswing to the contact point, your head, and/or upper body is rotating early off of the contact point and thus creating a "pulling" rather than "pushing" effect on the tennis ball at contact. Many players will lift their head, shoulders, and arm too soon, pulling the racket off the ball and side-swiping at the contact zone rather than driving through the ball. This lack of racket penetration through the back of the ball will cause a loss of power, authority, and pressure with the quality of the shot.

Applications:

• Working on keeping your head down in the contact point trains your body to stay connected through contact, extension, and follow-through zones.

• Thit can be worked on and trained in live hitting, hand-fed, or controlled rallying situations. It just depends on the players awareness on making the improvements on the shot based on the training situation they are working on.

• Personally, some focused cross-court backhands for about 3-5 mins followed by point-play always gets my attention to pushing on the backhand right where it needs to be.

4. Backswing with the non-dominant hand

A very simple yet not commonly referred to training tool is taking the racket back (with 2 hands) with the non-dominant hand. What this means is to focus on pulling your backswing back with a normal squeeze intensity on the non-dominant hand (8/10) and a very low squeeze intensity on the dominant hand (3/10).

This focus allows for a couple things to take place. The entirety of the stroke begins and ends with the non-dominant hand. This is made possible by giving majority of the preference of the stroke to the non-dominant hand from the very beginning due to the squeeze intensity. Secondly, this ensures a full and proper unit turn. As the non-dominant hand requires a full takeback with the squeeze intensity being higher, the backswing will be full and coiled for the forward swing to begin.

Applications:

• This can be accomplished in hand-fed, live hitting or Coach fed hitting situations. It truly depends on how much you can focus on this training mechanism depending on the hitting situation.

• A method I use is the make sure that from the first mini-tennis warm-up shots to the final baseline rally to conclude the warmup, I'm focused on the Left hand as the primary hand to "feel" the contact and driving zone for the swing path.

• Take footage of your backhand from a side view and see how much of your non-dominant hand is pushing vs your dominant hand pulling the stroke.

The two-handed backhand can be a major part of a winning recipe for anyone’s tennis game. With the right foundation, training, and development, this shot will make or break a player’s success in the modern competitive tennis era. Taking your two-handed backhand to the next level, or at least bringing it up to the level of the rest of your game, is non-negotiable. When trained correctly, it will become the most steady, reliable, simple, and least complicated shot in your entire tennis arsenal.