My favourite sound in tennis comes from the other side of the net. When a one-handed backhand actually comes off, clean through the ball and curling crosscourt, my hitting partner lets out a “woop”, or a long “ohh”.
For a second I feel like Wawrinka or Federer. Obviously I don’t look as good as either of them, but the feeling is real, and it’s a big part of why I fell for the shot.
So it’s a bit awkward to admit that I now hit a two-hander.
How I ended up with one hand
I came to tennis from table tennis and badminton, two sports where every backhand is played with one hand. When I started taking lessons, the one-hander made sense to me straight away. The two-hander felt stiff.
Around the same time I was getting into the sport through Wawrinka highlights, which didn’t exactly push me towards two hands.
Where it fell apart
On a good day, with time to set up, my one-hander held up. The trouble came on the run. Pulled out wide and stretched, I’d get to the ball, but all I could do was slice it back, a low-quality shot that handed my opponent the initiative. Maybe that’s my poor technique.
The bigger problems were physical. I’m on the shorter side, and high balls to my backhand were a constant struggle. The one-hander also asks a lot of your footwork, and keeping that up got harder as I got older and, let’s be honest, slower.
So I switched. The two-hander feels more stable to me, almost like a reverse golf swing. It forgives the moments when my feet aren’t where they should be, which is more moments than I’d like.
I miss the one-hander, though, and I still hit it every now and then.
The coaches have a point
I’m not going to pretend the people teaching the two-hander are wrong. A 2025 piece from Northeastern University describes coaches, club pros and parents increasingly teaching beginners the two-hander. Rui Li, who directs the university’s exercise science programme, says that the two-handed backhand brings in more large muscle groups, including the core, back and shoulder, to keep it stable. That stability, she says, is a real help to young players as they grow.
That matches my own reason for switching: I wanted something steadier on high balls. A coach with a group of kids is trying to give every one of them a backhand that works, and I’d probably make the same call in their shoes.
If you’re chasing a pro career, listen to your coach
If you’re a junior with a real shot at a pro career, my advice is simple: listen to your coach. It’s your livelihood, and they can see your game far better than a blog can.
The numbers back them up. In August 2026, CLAY counted 19 one-handers in the ATP top 300, down from 62 in April 2013. Tennis Abstract keeps a running list if you want to see who’s left. That’s the state of tennis now, and a coach steering a promising junior to two hands is reading it correctly.
There’s always a great story in the player who keeps the one-hander against the grain, and I’ll cheer for every one of them. Most people take the safer option, and I don’t blame them. My hope, and it’s only a hope, is that racket and string technology keeps moving in a direction that makes the one-hander easier to bring back.
The rest of us are trying to win on a weeknight
Most people reading this will never play professionally, and I certainly won’t. I play two to four times a week with my other half and our tennis friends. It’s almost always social, and it’s also highly competitive.
What keeps me coming back is the feeling of getting better. I want to hit a shot this week that I couldn’t hit last month, and win a few more of the points that used to beat me.
That’s a different job from building a pro game, and it can have different answers. If the one-hander is the shot that makes you want to book another court, that counts for a lot. A long crosscourt backhand rally, with both of you waiting for someone to change it down the line, is one of the best things in club tennis. I don’t think anyone should give that up because of a ranking list they’ll never be on.
Some people find it easier
It’s hard to say how far this goes, but many of the people I’ve talked to who came from other racket sports find the one-hander easier to pick up. If your hands already know how to hit a backhand with one arm, tennis might feel familiar from day one.
It cuts the other way too. Some people find a tennis racket heavy, especially at first, and they seem to pick up the hip turn on a two-hander more easily. The second hand takes some of that weight off.
So if you’re learning as an adult, give both a proper go before you decide.
Keep both
You don’t have to pick a side forever. I hit two hands most of the time now, and the one-hander still gets an outing now and again.
Next time you’re on court, keep the two-hander for the high balls and the stretches. Then, when you get a ball at waist height with a second to set up, turn your shoulders and hit it with one hand.