Well I said most of what I feel in the previous thread, but I feel the greater physical strength you have, the easier the top-spin single hander is. For most people the slice is definitely the more natural and easier to hit shot.
I've never heard of someone preferring to return first serves with a top-spin single hander rather than the block slice, gotta say :lol:
the base option for the most part on return is block / open faced returns with continental grip, and is what many return to playing with on an ordinary day or will play in a tight match to get the point started... the margins are better for point starting, but also allow for a multitude of attacking options for your opponent if you dont catch crisp or float it short... this is a part of nadal's game that he has improved over the years but rarely gets the credit for - as in, he open face returns on the backhand wing, but it lands very deep with alarming regularity... nadal actaully has the best floater i have seen since a visit to my mates toilet in 1997 where he left a deposit for me...
but opening a match with a sharp, abbreviated returns with a strong backhand grip is very common also...
How do you know most players feel the opposite? That seems very weird.
The topspin backand is much more natural to me, at least single-handed. I find slicing much harder, cannot really hit it reliably. Then again, for some reason I also find the backhand easier to hit, and more powerful, than the forehand, so I may not be representative.
I have heard people say this before, but this really puzzles me, can you elaborate? For me slice is easier on high balls, and tospin on low balls, and with good reason. How can it be easier to swing low to high on a ball that is already high? I think you can only hit a flat show or a slice then. And how can you swing down on a ball that is already low?
by and large at pro level, two handers find it easy to play topspin and flat about the waist and around the shoulders due to the extra strut that the top arm provides (eg; left arm for right handers) - the top hand and arm is the control element... one handers have both the control and power elements left to the one arm, and so a slice is integral for anyone wishing to develop a complete one handed backhand game, as the control element of the one hander gets progressively weaker the higher the point of contact is...
depending on where you come from, slice is taught in different degrees of importance... in australia in the 70's 80's and early 90's, slice is the first shot a good junior will master for the most part... the aussies lost themselves though trying to copy 'world's best practice' and tried be good at what the rest of the world was doing and only in the last 5 or 6 years has there been a look back and an admission of what made players unique in the past...
..and what i can tell you is that the slice is taught first and foremost as both a rally option and a defensive option - the easiest way of keeping a point alive... and, for this it is most natural for the slice to be encouraged to be struck at knee height or below...
as one would progress through the levels, encountering tactically aware players adept and using angles and topspin to break down a single handed player would be as common as muck - subsequently the slice backhand would naturally develop as a way to keep a rally at 50/50... over time, the level of timing built up by constant use of the slice would be seriously refined, finally tuning the shot in to an attacking option, where the ball contact can be knifed at shoulder height - on the rise - and lasered down into the court forcing the opponent to hit up defensively, or play aggressively in response but with very much an added element of risk...
above all, the slice is a feel shot and only gets better the more you play it... in discovering the shot, if you abandon the practice of it because you made an error you thought felt totally wrong - then don't... bending the front knee and scooping under the ball with a continental open face only gets better the more you do it... and because it is a feel shot, it is extremely hard to teach - you can only encourage a player to use it or put them in situations where they would use it...
np dude, it depends on the person honestly. The single-hander I always found took a lot of physical strength, I was a slice machine when I played
Also I would always slice low balls, the lower the ball the harder it is to hit a top spin shot.
yes... a classically trained player will have no problem with the slice at any height level, or at any pace...
to sit courtside at rotterdam and watch soderling coil up, then repeatedly pummel in-to-out forehands only to see youzhny square up side on and feather the wrist under the ball, sending slice backhands cross court with ease time and time again - you do begin to understand that it is a shot that only time can teach, but when it is mastered it is the easiest option for the one hander in such a situation...
by the time soderling were to club the ball again, much of the pace he had generated from his previous shot was lost, his court positioning would be just as deep and he would have to expend the energy to generate the pace once again... where as youzhny expended very little out there...
so, when lopez and clydey were having the argument that started this thread in relation to fed vs delpo, it is easy to see where clydey is coming from in that federer is classically trained in all aspects of the game and for him and players like him, using the open face in this way is not an issue... but neither poster was in wrong in what they were conveying...
