{"id":1156,"date":"2013-04-10T13:38:37","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T17:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=1156"},"modified":"2013-04-10T13:38:37","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T17:38:37","slug":"the-state-of-the-one-handed-backhand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/10\/the-state-of-the-one-handed-backhand\/","title":{"rendered":"The State of the One-Handed Backhand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italian translation at settesei.it<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Don’t write the eulogy just yet. The one-handed backhand isn’t the common sight that it used to be, but there are still plenty of them out there. \u00a0When the current generation retires, however, we might have an endangered species on our hands. \u00a0Here’s a quick look at the prevalence of the one-hander in today’s men’s game.<\/p>\n

About 1 in 5 players (62 of the top 300) at the ATP and Challenger level use a one-handed backhand. \u00a0To focus more narrowly: 10 of the top 50, 14 of those ranked 51-100, 13 from 101 to 150, 9 between 151 and 200, and 8 each in ranges 201-250 and 251-300.<\/span><\/p>\n

One-handed backhands are slightly more popular among righties than lefties. \u00a0Among the top 200, there are 28 lefties, six of whom (21.4%) have one-handers. \u00a0 That compares to 23.3% among righties.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we split the top 300 into quartiles by age, a distinct preference appears. \u00a0About 30% of the oldest half of the top 300 (those born in 1986 or before) use one-handed backhands: 23 of the oldest 75 and 22 of the next-oldest quartile. \u00a0Of the second-youngest quartile–those born between the beginning of 1987 and July 1989, there are only 10 one-handers, or 13.3%. \u00a0The youngest quartile is bleakest, with only seven one-handers among the 75 players. Six of the seven are Europeans, including <\/span>the youngest man in the top 300<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>Dominic Thiem<\/a>. The only non-European is the American <\/span>Daniel Kosakowski<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

To summarize more concisely if a bit less dramatically, the average age of those with one-handed backhands in the top 300 is 28 years, 63 days, while the average age of two-handers is 26 years, 103 days. \u00a0Given the number of second tier players clustered in the late-20s range, that is a bigger difference than it might sound.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year there were 137 matches at the ATP level between two players with one-handed backhands. \u00a0At all 137 of those matches, someone was heard to say, “Two one-handed backhands! You don’t see that much anymore.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Italian translation at settesei.it Don’t write the eulogy just yet. The one-handed backhand isn’t the common sight that it used to be, but there are still plenty of them out there. \u00a0When the current generation retires, however, we might have an endangered species on our hands. \u00a0Here’s a quick look at the prevalence of the … Continue reading The State of the One-Handed Backhand<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-backhands"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}