Back in January, when Stan Wawrinka won the Australian Open, it was the first time in more than four years that someone not named Federer, Nadal, Djokovic or Murray captured a grand-slam championship. This was heartening for tennis fans, who have grown tired of watching the so-called Big Four dominate the sport for the last decade. But for a small and perhaps dwindling set of tennis aesthetes, it was noteworthy for a less obvious reason. Wawrinka, a 29-year-old Swiss player, uses one of the prettiest strokes in tennis: a singular display of agility, balance and precision timing known as the one-handed backhand. It is far superior for slice, or underspin; it is also much better for drop shots and volleys and for retrieving difficult-to-reach balls. Good players can conjure exquisite angles with it.
Fifty years ago, virtually everyone, pros and hackers alike, used one-handers. But now the shot is disappearing. Power and spin have become the defining features of the modern game, and having a second hand on the racket makes it easier for most players to parry the pace and rotation. The one-hander, which is less effective against high-velocity, high-bouncing shots, has come to be seen as a liability. The Italian player Roberta Vinci switched from a two-hander when she was 18, and though she has been ranked as high as 11th in singles, she told me that she wouldn’t make the same decision again. “The one-hander is so hard; they play so strong now,” she said. “But I’m 31 and cannot change anymore.”
Vinci is one of just three women in the Top 100 still playing with a one-handed backhand. There are just 24 one-handers in the men’s Top 100, down from nearly 50 a decade ago. And most of the holdouts are, in tennis years, geezers. Roger Federer just turned 33, Francesca Schiavone is 34 and Tommy Haas is an ancient 36. Grigor Dimitrov, a 23-year-old one-hander who just cracked the Top 10, may well be the last of the breed. By my count, just five of the Top 100 boys in the world have one-handed backhands. Among the Top 100 girls, I found one. Your chance of seeing a one-hander at a junior tournament is fractionally better than your chance of seeing a wooden racket.
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