Tennis
The Best Backhands in Tennis History: Who Tops the List?
The path was laid for modern players to use the backhand technique by the likes of Ken Rosewall and Don Budge. We look at who is the best.
Monica Seles//Getty Images
The backhand in tennis is a technique often employed and immensely popular as a mechanism to outwit one’s opponents.
Who does it best? Opinions vary, however, certain names in the history of tennis creep up often when mention of this powerful technique is made.
Among them are greats of yesteryear like Don Budge, Ken Rosewall, and the modern players of today like Novak Djokovic. We undertake to establish who out of them and others top the list.
Let Us Jolt Your Memory a Bit
We will not get into the specifics of the backhand technique in of itself, but just in case you are coming across the technique as a topic for the first time, we seek to define it briefly for you.
The backhand technique is not complicated to understand or figure out. Just close your eyes after this brief description and you will see how it works without having to pry the internet for videos.
To execute a backhand, a player swings at the ball with their racquet and back of the hand facing forward across your body.
Depending on the hand you use, your hand’s destination after hitting the ball is on the opposite end. From left to right, or right to left.
The Best Backhands in History
Any such lists and undertakings of crowning the ‘best’ are very subjective and the approaches will vary per who is producing them. We are not exempt from that fact, but we try as best to compile it using data we have analysed thoroughly.
On that note, the backhand is struck using either one-hand or the double-hand (both hands) and each works perfectly when executed well. Each technique has a tennis player who is known to have perfected it in beating their opponents.
Our approach will therefore crown the Queen or King of either backhand technique, followed by the overall best striker of the backhand. Mention is made of other notable tennis players who had good backhand techniques.
The Best Double-handed Backhand Tennis Player in History
Monica Seles
Seles without doubt comes top at any mention of the double-hand technique in tennis. A former World no.1, Seles is touted as one of the best products tennis has ever produced in history.
Most believe she could have achieved greater heights were it not for the attack she experienced on the tennis court.
As proof of her prowess at the time, she was crowned the then-youngest major champion at 16 years of age, having won her first professional crown at 15.
A major turning point occurred in 1993 that would alter the trajectory of her then budding career.
A fan obsessed with her major rival at the time, Steffi Graf, managed to stab Seles in Hamburg, Germany, while she was playing in a quarterfinal against Magdalena Maleeva.
Following her return to tennis after a two-year hiatus, Seles was not the same and could not replicate the talent she had earlier shown as a result obviously not of her own doing.
Using the double-handed backhand technique at that age, Monica Seles was indeed a force to reckon with and made history in that noticeably short successful stint she had.
It is the wonder of all tennis enthusiasts how far she would have gone in terms of her success had she not encountered that horrific incident, which obviously had a psychological impact on her.
Notable Mentions
Pancho Segura
Fabrice Santoro
Marion Bartoli
Peng Shuai
Andre Agassi
Justine Henin
Roger Federer’s earlier coach, Peter Carter, believed in the one-handed backhand shot. The Australian also believed in the traditional Aussie-style attacking game.
The Best One-handed Backhand Tennis Player in History
Roger Federer
Roger Federer//Getty Images
Names like Ken Rosewall, Steffi Graf, Roy Emerson, and Richard Gasquet would easily pass off for the best one-handed tennis players in history were it not for Roger Federer.
The Swiss legend is the last of his kind when it comes to using the one-handed backhand in tennis.
Watching and learning from the likes of Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg and Pete Sampras, Federer rested on the shoulders of giants winning twenty majors with one hand.
Federer’s one hander was very impressive and technically sound especially on the slice, giving him more technical options than his opponents, although Rafael Nadal was able to exploit it with his left-handed forehand.
The legendary tennis player has in recent times bemoaned the slow demise of the technique after Stefanos Tsitsipas dropped out of the ATP top ten, leaving it without any player who used it.
We can thus say that Federer carried the one-handed backhand into the 21st century where the double-handed backhand has been the more favoured technique.
Notable Mentions
Martina Navratilova
Stefanos Tsitsipas
Roy Emerson
Richard Gasquet
Steffi Graf
Stan Wawrinka
The Best Backhand Tennis Player in History
Who we believe to be the best backhand tennis player in history is not based off overall titles, but the immense potential shown in the brief period of dominance she had.
We could have gone with Roger Federer, like we said, he won twenty majors using one hand as is commonly suggested and is the best one-handed backhand tennis player in the Open Era.
However, Monica Seles takes the crown for us. To pull of the feats that she did at her age using the double-handed backhand is worth taking note.
We cannot even say she had reached her prime by then. She was far from it, but had already blazed the scene, reaching heights unimaginable.
FAQs
Most modern tennis players do not use the one-handed backhand and recently the ATP’s top ten was without one.
Yes, the one-handed backhand is on a slow demise.
It was the much more preferred technique, with several of Roger Federer’s icons from that era having used it.
We believe practice makes perfect, but the double-handed backhand has more grip and is therefore easier in our assessment.
Jimmy is based in Johannesburg, South Africa and has a Diploma in Journalism and Media Studies. He’s a sports fanatic of several sporting disciplines which he is well versed with.