Master the Two-Handed Backhand: 4 Essential Tennis Techniques for Control and Power

By Paul Dale | The 3AM Method

Complete guide to developing a versatile two-handed backhand with professional-level control, spin, and directional accuracy

The two-handed backhand can be one of tennis's most reliable and powerful strokes when executed with proper technique. However, many tennis players struggle with consistency and versatility because they focus on rigid grip positions rather than understanding the fundamental mechanics that create control and power.

These five essential elements will transform your two-handed backhand from a defensive liability into an offensive weapon. By mastering hand positioning, power generation, and directional control, you'll develop the backhand versatility needed for competitive tennis success.

1. Bottom Hand Positioning: Controlling Your Contact Zone Length

The bottom hand grip position directly plays a part in the length of your two-handed backhand contact zone, which in turn fundamentally affects your ability to handle different shot directions and heights.

Understanding Contact Zone Control

When the knuckles of your bottom hand are positioned nearer top of the handle, you benefit from a longer contact zone. This extended contact zone provides more time “on the ball”, making down-the-line backhands easier to execute.

Knuckles closer to the top of the handle are also better for high balls, particularly high Returns of Serve. This grip position gives the backhand more stability overall as you use less wrist work.

Positioning the knuckles of your bottom hand further around the front of the handle creates a shorter contact zone, allowing you to use more wrist work, which helps in hitting cross-court shots with disguise. Timing the ball down the line, especially when it is moving faster, is more challenging.

Professional tennis players, such as Novak Djokovic, demonstrate this principle clearly. His bottom hand positioning almost on top of the handle indicates preparation for down-the-line backhand execution, providing the extended contact zone necessary for precise directional control.

Developing Grip Versatility

When you are developing your game, learn to hit with a variety of bottom hand positions.

Develop a two-handed backhand with multiple grip positions rather than adhering to a single fixed grip. Each grip position offers specific advantages and limitations depending on ball height, speed, spin, and intended shot direction.

Tennis coaching that begins with fixed grip positions ultimately limits your competitive development. Instead, focus on developing complete racquet face control across various grip positions.

Grips should serve the requirements of the racquet head , and not restrict your tactical options.

The key mind shift involves focusing on racquet face positioning/angle rather than grip positioning. This approach develops intuitive adjustment ability that automatically adapts to different balls and strategic requirements.

2. Top Hand Function: Setting Height and Racquet Face Angles

The top hand is responsible for three critical functions that determine stroke effectiveness and consistency.

The Opposite-Hand: Adjusting the Arms and Racquet-head

Many players use their opposite hand (if you use your right hand for forehands, the opposite hand is your left hand).

The top hand's first function involves adjusting your arms and racquet head to match the expected height of the contact. This adjustment, made through the use of the opposite hand, proves particularly valuable in situations involving high-bouncing tennis balls and returns of serve, where maintaining racquet stability under pressure is essential.

Proper top-hand adjustment creates a stable platform that prevents late preparation, weak, unstable contact, which typically results in unforced errors or poor ball control.

Setting Racquet Face Angles

Your opposite hand can also serve as a steering mechanism for racquet face angles, much like a rudder controlling a boat's direction. Before beginning your swing, the top hand sets the desired racquet face angle, which determines the ball's height over the net.

This angle-setting phase allows you to make conscious decisions about net clearance. Often, under time pressure, players swing at balls without thinking much about the angle of the racquet face for contact. Using the opposite hand gives the player racquet head awareness.

Enabling Grip Adjustment

As your top hand sets racquet face angles for each ball, your bottom hand should relax slightly and automatically find its optimal grip position. This relaxation allows two essential things to occur simultaneously.

First, the top hand completes angle setting without interference from bottom hand tension. Second, the bottom hand automatically adjusts to its ideal position for the intended shot without conscious manipulation.

This top-hand dominance of the backhand continues throughout the swing. The energy for the swing should be dominated by your top hand, helping create smoother and more powerful two-handed backhands.

3. Power Generation and Timing: Ground Connection Through Contact Foot

Two-handed backhand power generation requires effective interaction with the ground through proper contact foot utilisation. The ground provides your primary energy source and timing reference for consistent stroke execution.

Developing Ground Interaction Skills

You really can’t discuss any groundstroke without referring to the source of timing and power for groundstrokes.

Every groundstroke draws timing and power through our Contact Foot. It doesn’t matter which foot you use; that’s why you see both men and women tennis professionals using a wide range of ways to create their Contact Foot. Right foot, left foot, open stance, closed stance, front foot, back foot; it’s all the same.

Learn to create effective Contact Foot interaction with the ground on all ball types. This versatility in ground connection forms the foundation of backhand effectiveness

Professional tennis players like Andy Roddick demonstrate this principle by using toe contact to draw energy and timing from the ground, creating the power transfer necessary for penetrating backhand shots.

Using Ground for Timing

The Contact Foot also provides your primary source timing groundstrokes. All timing originates from the foot you designate as your contact foot rather than from your arm.

Focus your awareness on the incoming ball to judge ground interaction timing accordingly. Your goal is synchronisation between the ground connection and the ball contact.

Timing is the successful synchronisation between the ground, your swing and the ball.

4. Adding Spin: Contact-to-High Technique for Penetrating Shots

Effective spin for the two-handed backhand technique requires understanding the difference between spinning during contact and adding spin through follow-through positioning.

Avoid Spinning Your Contact

Many tennis players attempt to create topspin by "brushing" the ball with low-to-high swing paths during the contact zone. This approach reduces your feel for height control and significantly decreases ball penetration after bouncing on your opponent's side of the court.

I’m aware that everywhere teaches “brushing” the ball, and talk up the benefits of creating “spin control”, but they probably are not working with professional tennis players. If you coach professional players, you need to find a way to retain the benefits of spin and avoid the negatives of too much spin.

While low-to-high spinning techniques may seem safer initially due to increased net clearance, they limit offensive capability and reduce competitive effectiveness over time. The resulting shots lack the penetration needed to finish the point.

Implementing Contact-to-High Technique

Advanced players use a different spin technique. They adopt a contact (racquet comes from behind the ball) to high swing path rather than the low (below the ball) to high technique. The critical difference lies in striking the ball as flat as possible. The contact-to-high technique involves clean contact followed by a high hand finishing position. This method retains ball penetration while creating necessary topspin for controlling the ball and applying pressure to the opponent.

The height of your follow-through (finish) directly determines the amount of topspin. Higher finishing positions create more spin, while a lower finish means less spin.

Developing Complete Two-Handed Backhand Mastery

These four fundamental elements work together to create a complete two-handed backhand system that provides both offensive capability and defensive reliability. Mastering bottom-hand grip versatility, top-hand control, ground interaction, and spin application creates the backhand versatility needed for competitive tennis success.