{"id":7630,"date":"2026-01-07T10:39:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T10:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=7630"},"modified":"2026-01-07T13:21:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T13:21:27","slug":"how-much-would-a-second-forehand-be-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/07\/how-much-would-a-second-forehand-be-worth\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Would a Second Forehand Be Worth?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe you&#8217;ve seen the videos floating around of 13-year-old Lucas Herrera Sanchez, who hits a forehand on both sides:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">13 year old Ambidextrous kid Lucas hits forehand on both sides and no backhand he\u2019s lighting up the junior tournaments\u2026<br><br>This is insane \ud83e\udd2f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ml4PteRLjv\">pic.twitter.com\/ml4PteRLjv<\/a><\/p>&mdash; SK (@Djoko_UTD) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Djoko_UTD\/status\/2007372566017814925?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 3, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The replies are fascinating. Responses run the gamut from &#8220;Why doesn&#8217;t everybody do this?&#8221; to &#8220;Switching grips will kill him.&#8221; Or my favorite: &#8220;What if he needs to hit a backhand?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we&#8217;re agreed: It could be the future of tennis, or it could be nothing. It isn&#8217;t completely unprecedented: Cheong-Eui Kim cracked the top 300 a decade ago, and a handful of juniors have reached an international standard for their age groups. Going way back, Beverly Baker Fleitz (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2022\/02\/03\/the-tennis-128-no-128-beverly-baker-fleitz\/\">#128 on my Tennis 128<\/a>) took her two forehands all the way to the 1955 Wimbledon final. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2022\/07\/05\/the-tennis-128-no-70-john-bromwich\/\">John Bromwich<\/a>, another Wimbledon finalist, hit forehands and backhands from both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, of course, there&#8217;s a long history of teaching kids to hit forehands with their non-dominant hand. Rafael Nadal is a natural righty, while all-timers Maureen Connolly, Margaret Court, and Ken Rosewall were lefties who played right-handed. There&#8217;s no reason why any of those players couldn&#8217;t have developed two forehands instead of the one they did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let&#8217;s try to put some numbers on this. What&#8217;s the value of having two forehands instead of one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Plug and play<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We can&#8217;t run the counterfactual where, say, Carlos Alcaraz learns two forehands from age six. But we can work out what would happen if his backhand were exactly as effective as his forehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I probably don&#8217;t need to tell you that this would be an improvement for most players. We have ten-plus matches&#8217; worth of 2025 charting-level data for <a href=\"https:\/\/tennisabstract.com\/reports\/mcp_leaders_rally_men_last52.html\">37 different men<\/a>. Going by my Forehand Potency (FHP) and Backhand Potency (BHP) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/17\/match-charting-project-rally-stats-glossary\/\">metrics<\/a>, only three guys&#8211;Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Daniil Medvedev, and Alexander Zverev&#8211;were more effective on the backhand side. Everybody else would&#8217;ve benefited from magically attaining forehand-level performance on both wings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FHP and BHP tally up winners (plus forced errors), unforced errors, and shots that lead to one of those outcomes. Jannik Sinner, for instance, scores +13.2 FHP per match. Divide by 1.5 to translate to points, and Sinner&#8217;s forehand earned him about nine points per match more than a &#8220;neutral&#8221; forehand&#8211;one more like Zverev&#8217;s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The typical tour regular grades out at 6.7 FHP and 0.6 BHP per match. That&#8217;s a difference of about six, or roughly four points. Put another way: Give the average player a backhand as effective as his forehand, and he&#8217;d win four more points per match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Plus or minus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Four points per match. The average match runs about 140 points, so that&#8217;s a boost of nearly 3% of total points. Can you feel something dripping on you? That&#8217;s a tennis player uncontrollably salivating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Three percentage points is <em>huge<\/em>. I once estimated that an improvement of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/05\/the-power-of-one-point-per-thousand\/\">one point in a thousand<\/a> (0.1%, or one-thirtieth of 3%) was worth a single position in the rankings. That model wasn&#8217;t really designed to handle such big adjustments, so we can&#8217;t exactly say that a second forehand would be worth a 30-place ranking boost. On the other hand: Give, say, Tommy Paul four more points per match, and his point-winning rate would be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/cgi-bin\/leaders.cgi\">as high as anyone<\/a> except for Sinner. Hand the same boost to 49th-ranked Jenson Brooksby, and he&#8217;d win more points than anyone ranked outside the top six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But. BUT. So many buts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don&#8217;t know about Herrera Sanchez, but I suspect that most two-forehanded players still have a weak side. Maybe the gap wouldn&#8217;t be as big as the standard forehand\/backhand difference. But even with training from a young age, I doubt that the average unnatural-side forehand would be as strong as the player&#8217;s natural side forehand. I have no idea what that means for the 3% number, other than the fact that it is too high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There&#8217;s also the issue of grip-changing. Depending on who you ask, the delay and awkwardness of switching from one forehand grip to the other either dooms the whole project, or it isn&#8217;t that big of a deal. I suspect that if a kid can learn to hit two forehands, he can figure out the grip-changing issues. Still, there is a probably a cost. (If nothing else, on return of serve. It might make sense to have a defensive backhand for first-serve returns only.) Again, I have no idea what that cost is. You give up a few more winners, but you hit better shots when you get there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the <em>other<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/buttonwoods-notebook\/2010\/06\/07\/one-armed-economists\">other hand<\/a>, simply plugging in forehand value for backhand value might in one regard <em>understate<\/em> the benefits of having two forehands! 53% of ATP groundstrokes are forehands, yet most players target their opponents&#8217; backhands. In other words, pros are covering considerably more than half the court with their forehand. There&#8217;s a cost to that: Awkward inside-out attempts, suboptimal court position after the shot, etc. Depending on the player, I&#8217;d guess that 10% to 20% of forehands would be backhands if the forehand weren&#8217;t the better option. (For example, only 45% of Medvedev&#8217;s groundstrokes are forehands.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The better a player&#8217;s secondary shot, whether a backhand or a weaker-hand forehand, the less often he&#8217;ll go out of position to hit a forehand. Those are some of the toughest forehands, so taking fewer of them will mean (dominant-hand) <em>forehand<\/em> potency will go up, too. As with the other complications, I have no idea how to quantify that with the data we have. It&#8217;s probably not a significant change to the number, but directionally, it mitigates some of the effect of second-forehand weakness and grip-changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stepping back<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While I can calculate the hypotheticals, this is ultimately a coaching and player-development question. Given a talented, motivated youngster, is it worth teaching them a second forehand instead of a backhand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here, I <em>really<\/em> have no clue. Maybe Herrera Sanchez will make it big. The same level of early tinkering certainly worked out for Rafa! But how often have coaches tried this? For every Rafa or Rosewall, are there ten kids who flamed out (or just gave up) early because a weaker-hand forehand was too frustrating? Or did they end up starting late with a proper backhand, never fully developing that shot? How many youngsters even have the potential to develop a powerful forehand with their non-dominant hand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s hardly a magic bullet, even if a junior does manage to develop high-quality shots on both wings. While 3% of total points is huge by tennis standards, you still need 50% to win most matches. If an up-and-comer with two forehands tops out at 5-foot-9, or struggles too much with double faults, or doesn&#8217;t develop elite movement and anticipation, or comes up short on any one of a hundred more dimensions, he&#8217;ll have a hard time establishing himself on the Challenger tour, if that. &#8220;Not good enough&#8221; plus 3% is still, almost always, not good enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The best way to think about this, I think, is to frame the second forehand as a really, <em>really<\/em> good backhand. It isn&#8217;t exactly the same, but it&#8217;s close enough. Novak Djokovic has one, and of course it has worked out for him, because he&#8217;s historically great at all sorts of things. Benoit Paire had one: He won three titles and made an appearance inside the top 20. Elmer M\u00f8ller has one, and at age 22 he&#8217;s still hunting for a top-100 debut. A non-dominant-side groundstroke of that caliber is an incredible asset, yet it&#8217;s still a small part of a winning formula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Is developing a second forehand easier than doubling up on backhand-down-the-line drills? Are there more kids out there who could crush it with their non-dominant hand than could develop an absolute top-tier backhand? I don&#8217;t know! If Herrera Sanchez (or someone else) makes enough waves, more coaches will consider the possibilities. Then we&#8217;ll get more data, and we might be able to sort out whether two forehands is a blind alley, or if it really is the future of tennis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe you&#8217;ve seen the videos floating around of 13-year-old Lucas Herrera Sanchez, who hits a forehand on both sides: The replies are fascinating. Responses run the gamut from &#8220;Why doesn&#8217;t everybody do this?&#8221; to &#8220;Switching grips will kill him.&#8221; Or my favorite: &#8220;What if he needs to hit a backhand?&#8221; So we&#8217;re agreed: It could &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/07\/how-much-would-a-second-forehand-be-worth\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">How Much Would a Second Forehand Be Worth?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","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":[10,46,49,90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-backhands","category-groundstrokes","category-harebrained-schemes","category-rally-statistics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7630","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=7630"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7633,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7630\/revisions\/7633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}