How can something so beautiful to watch, a stroke so etched into tennis history, be so exploitable — and why have a dwindling handful of players remained loyal to it? By Matthew Futterman Reporting ...

The goal of professional sports has always been to win. Looking good while doing it? That's just a bonus for the gawkers and connoisseurs of bodily form in motion. In professional tennis, the "beauty ...

Behold my requiem for the one-handed backhand: threatened but not quite extinct, clinging to relevance like the used bookstore, the standard transmission, and the overly-nostalgic newspaper sports ...

More than a year after his retirement, Roger Federer remains the poster boy for the one-handed backhand – tennis’s most aesthetic shot. Yet he could also be the key to its decline. When the ATP ...

In the wake of the news that this week will mark the first in ATP history that no players in the Top 10 possess a one-handed backhand**,* Tennis.com offers a look back at a 2023 series counting down ...

With the Italian finishing 2025 at No. 8, there's still been at least one one-handed backhand in every year-end Top 10 in ATP rankings history, which dates back to 1973. This week on Tennis.com, we'll ...

LONDON -- When Karolina Muchova stepped onto the courts at Roland Garros two weeks ago, ending her latest injury layoff, one element of her game stood out. Her signature sliced backhand, once used to ...

Federer, Wawrinka, Thiem, Tsitsipas: The High Cost of Mastering the One-Handed Backhand Roger Federer made it a symbol of fluidity and variation, even though he often paid the price at Roland-Garros ...

Dominic Thiem is still the most recent player with a one-handed backhand to win a Grand Slam title. After falling short in three previous finals, Thiem finally broke through at the 2020 US Open, ...

Which shot is the better stroke: a one-handed or two-handed backhand? If you asked Roger Federer or Justine Henin-Hardenne they would say the one-hander. Conversely, if you asked Andre Agassi or ...