Attacking the One-Handed Backhand

◆1. Use the High Ball

The single best attack against most one-handers is the high, deep ball, especially if it has heavy topspin. Your opponent will usually hit, at best, a weak reply. This will set you up for an easy put-away if you come to the net.

The one-hander's best defense against this attack is to hit your ball on the rise, but on high, topspun balls, this requires considerable skill. Most players won't hit these well on the rise, and against them, the deeper your shot, the better. You'll force them to back up too far to hit any kind of aggressive reply.

If your opponent does show some skill at hitting on the rise, try making your heavily topspun ball land several feet short of his baseline, where it will then jump up before he can intercept it.

This can be risky, though. If you hit too short or too flat, you'll be the one fending off an attack.

All of the same principles can be translated from your groundstrokes to your serve, if you are capable of hitting a good kick serve. Hit it fairly deep with plenty of spin so that it jumps up high, then follow it to net if you're comfortable with serve-and-volley. Boris Becker used this tactic extremely well in his Wimbledon, Australian Open, and US Open triumphs.

◆2. Cause Lateness

The second biggest weakness of a one-handed backhand is its vulnerability to being late. The proper contact point for a one-hander is farther forward than for any other groundstroke. You can often make your opponent late by hitting a ball with extra speed, obviously enough, but extra topspin or extra slice can cause the same effect.

Topspin will make the ball slow down less when it bounces, thus getting to your opponent earlier than a flat ball would, given the same air speed. If your opponent has not read the spin properly, he will be surprised by how quickly the ball arrives.

Slice has the opposite effect on the ball's bounce: it makes the ball slow down more. This, in itself, would tend to make your opponent swing too early, but if you hit slices deep and fairly fast, you can also make your opponent swing late.

Slice makes a ball carry farther through the air, so an opponent who fails to read the spin properly will expect the ball to land shorter than it does. When the ball lands unexpectedly deep, he will often be unable to meet it far enough in front of himself to hit it well.

One-handers are less vulnerable to being jammed or stretched out wide than two-handers, but they are far from impervious to these attacks. Try jamming and stretching all of your opponents on both their backhands and their forehands.