Thanks for the tips Pieter, always great video, very clear. even better with students. Could you please assist on foot work, small steps before hitting, split set..
In my experience, there are several ways: 1. Move back so that the ball falls into your strike zone 2. Move forward and hit the ball on the rise 3. Play a slice up high 4. Play a top spin bh up high but with less pace and still go low to high a bit just to keep the rally going 5. Jump up and play the shot ala Shapovalov Number 4 seems least attractive, but you should still learn to do it with balls slightly above head height to get out of trouble in some situations.
I thought his backhand wasn't that bad to begin with. Yes you want to finish with your offhand further back but many times you open your chest up to hit a very hard shot so your offhand is not as far back. Gasquet and Wawrinka does this a lot but sometimes Fed will do the same. His main problem is that he hits flat and that will cause inconsistency if he uses this on every shot. I think two-handers are programmed to hit their backhands very flat because with their grips and body lean, it's easier to hit flat. But when they switch to one-handed, they are still thinking about hitting flat balls. I have a ton of topspin on my one-hander and I hit this shot so heavy that it gives my opponents a difficult ball to play on both their backhand and forehand sides producing a lot of errors. And the key to hitting with topspin is the racket path. You must go low to high and finish with the racket pointing skyward.
