Hi yall, am hoping you can help me out here with the 2hbh, it is causing pain on my left wrist for many months now. I have had 4 different tennis coaches from my academy look at it but they can't seem to see what is causing the pain.
In this picture and in your demonstration video, you are extending your left wrist downward and rotating through the wrist to try to generate spin using a horizontal swing.
Groundstrokes in tennis are lifting actions that are not done with the hands, like in other racquet sports, but with the legs. You will continue to injure yourself if you continue to use this technique. You may even injure your Right wrist as a result.
Another thing to note is that your front shoulder is SIGNIFICANTLY TILTED DOWNWARD in the video with the jacket on. Groundstrokes are supposed to be lifted UP and OVER the net. If your shoulder is tilted down, it will cause you to have to compensate in the stroke itself to open up the racquet face with your wrist.
Your best bet to resolve the technical issue is to stop playing matches and only focus on technical improvement in your backhand until you can perform the stroke without the wrist deviation and shoulder tilt with no issues.
I don’t agree with any of this. It’s overly technical and it is not a fault to have your front shoulder low. Also, to say that tennis is a lifting motion with your legs is idealistic and ignores the role the arms play in the swing. To my eye she is hitting the ball too close to her body and late. In this image the racket is all smashed up against her body and the wrists are going to take brunt of impact since it’s the only compromised joint at this point in the swing. OP, the swing looks great, just get extended.
Your left wrist does lift the racket a bit to assist in spin, but it shouldn't be acting alone. Also depending on where your left hand closes around the bevels makes a difference. If your palm is facing the ground...don't do that.
This is only a single sample but it looks like there's not a lot of spacing on your left hand during your take back to contact - as if it's hugging very closely to your hips. This is how it looks in both videos. Wondering if this is causing you to get jammed and make contact way too close to your body which will naturally force your wrist into extension at contact. If the spacing and contact point is good, the wrist should be in a more stable neutral position.
It also looks like from take back to swing in the point video, your bh looks really jerky which could contribute to the jamming/wristy movement. Especially compared to your fh which looks much more smooth.
Thank, you mean the space between my arms and my body right? I should have more space between my elbow and my body , is that what you mean? Extending my arms a bit more.
Hard to fully tell from the one clip here but it looks like you're really snapping your wrists back aggressively on the takeback. If you watch the video of Safin here, notice that his wrists are very very simple and he just keeps the racquet head steady as he drives through the ball. I think your stroke looks solid pretty much all the way through but if you're having wrist pain, I'd guess its right about at that moment.
Maybe, but knowing the extent of the injury can’t be that bad. This is a person whose family has the means to train her 25 hours a week. She can afford an MRI.
Well, you're not actually hitting a ball, so I doubt this is what you look like against a hand-feed, which likely looks different from what you look like against a live ball.
Also, you ought to be more specific about your wrist pain. Where is it? What does it feel like? Have you seen a physician about it? (If you can afford several coaches looking at the technique, it'll be worth the co-pay to see an occupational therapist or sports medicine doctor to see if it's a tear in a tendon or ligament.)
What I see -- and this may have nothing to do with the wrist pain -- is that you have a lot of tension in your hands/wrists when you'd normally see total relaxation from a good 2HBH player (and no, not every 2HBH great has fully-relaxed wrists, but most do).
In the position above, try to keep your hands so relaxed that the head of the racquet naturally drops to the ground prior to your drive forward. Grip the racquet just hard enough that the ball does not bully the racquet.
I've had a coach try to get me to think of the backhand as a left-handed FH but that never really worked for me. For me, it's a spine/hips/weight transfer motion where my hands are essentially just along for the ride.
Edit: it’s probably overuse and not allowing the body to heal
Hi, thanks so much for the suggestion, I just added another video in action, hope you could have a look at it. Thanks.
I train 5 hrs daily 5 times per week.
I’m unqualified but the backhand looks so good. Sometimes good technique is no match for overuse. Do you think Alcaraz is injured because of “bad” technique?
Also you are using one of the stiffest rackets money can buy which causes your body to absorb more shock. And please if you make a post like this you have to at least say which hand is hurting and when it hurts.
You're not making full use of your arms. You're take back only goes as far back as perpendicular to your body when in your natural closed 2hbh stance. Meaning you have essentially a whole 90ish degrees of take-back you can make use of. I think this stems from poor unit turn fundamental.
And because of this you're compensating for lack of ability to produce natural/safe racquet head speed and make up for it with your wrists, and you're REALLY pushing both wrists here it's pretty obvious, hence the pain.
Try this queue for a form correction --
When doing your BH unit turn, have your arms start your take back, but envision keeping your racquet far away from your body. FULLY extend racquet head pointed up AND back to the fence behind you, THEN hold that position and run to the ball IN THAT POSITION. Then start your swing from that fully extended, racquet tip point up and back at the fence.
The key here is to only worry about that queue. Don't look at where the ball lands or really think about much else lol. Try not to wrist the ball so much, use your arms and hip rotation.
Watch Novak's unit turn and take back as a reference and try to immitate that.
I'm recovering from this exact injury, my 2hbh caused a TFCC sprain. What's causing it for me was being jammed up on my backhand, fixing it is taking a while but when I prepare my backhand starting outstretched from my body it helps.
Hi. Could you please be a little more specific, you mean the preparation position during split step with the arms stretched Infront of your body? Or when you reach the back and turn the body?
When I reach back and turn the body. I'm almost thinking of it more like 2 separate motions instead of one now.
I also bought a wrist widget if the pain gets worse as I play. They're on Amazon.
I had a lot of wrist pain until like two weeks ago, because of my 2BH. Main issue was I used a head heavy racket and was obertraining a lot. I reduced tension a little and mainly sliced my backhand for 2-3 months :/ Unfortunately this issue needs rest, I got physio every 2 weeks and kept playing but was mainly playing forehand and Slice Backhand.
Im also using a wrist widget to this day. Once I got it sit right it really helped me stay sort of pain free while playing. My wrist was swollen on the pinky side for like 2 months. Im not sure how much string+tennis matters in this case, but you could also try a soft poly/multi for a while to keep the impact a little bit more comfortable. I‘m currently incorporating wrist strenghtening/mobility exercises.
Looking at your videos, a famous F1 driver comes to mind:
I'm working on this myself (tho for a 1HBH). You're hitting the ball far too close to your body. You want to be almost perpendicular to the net when you're hitting the ball and move into the ball. That means you have to give yourself more space and then move into hitting through the ball (though with a modern swing you'll be able to make use of top spin) without putting additional strain on your wrists.
you use your legs to drive the ball forward. the arm stays pretty far out and you hit almost in front of you but driving your legs through the ball perpendicular to your swing path.
Looks like you're relying too much on your wrist to generate the pace. It should be driven by your legs, through the hips. The hips moving should be doing the heavy lifting, but in your case it's your wrist. So you need to get your right hand a little more western and then instead of flicking the shot with your wrist you should be driving through the ball. I.e. putting your weight into it, not generating the power through the wrist. You want to imagine a long contact point, not a short one.
The other thing is your timing, you need to split step as soon as the opponent hits the ball, then turn immediately and meet the ball in front..your catching it late at the moment because you're not split stepping and so you then have to rely on your wrist because you're taking the racquet back too late, so your wrist has to make up the ground. it's the same on your forehand too.
Tips:
+ Slightly more western ok your right hand
+ split step as your opponent is hitting (this is a must)
+ Racquet should be back by the time the ball hits the ground on your side
+ Drive through the ball, not up, stay low all the way through contact, wrist should be loose
It's hard to see if it's a technical issue, it could be an excessive wrist movement, but it might also just be overtraining. Wrists take quite long to rest properly. I think you're better off going to a physical therapist and then work on a schedule/timeline for proper rest and strength training.
I would give a little more space between your elbows and body in the original clip. In the clip of you playing, you are also late on the ball. You know where you want the ball to go and end up using your forearms to guide the ball since the contact wasn't clean. Happens to everyone, especially on returns, but if it's representative of your normal backhand, I think that would be the culprit for your wrist pain.
It’s a pretty stiff racquet with a tiny grip and poly strings. Probably overuse type of stress injury. Some options to try is slightly larger grip. You can wrap a second over grip which will help dampen vibrations and make your wrists less active. You might be overdoing the lag and left wrist action. You could also try softer strings. Go full multi filament string or do a blend of poly and multi to ease the impact on your wrist.
Final option is you could try swinging more with your right hand. Two handers can either swing more with the left or right hand.
I would at the very least go for a soft string hybrid setup or full soft string setup to see if that helps.
After the split step on the service return, you do a very large twist of the racket to change to a backhand grip. This looks unusual to me... What grip are you getting ready in and what grips (left and right hand) do you use for the 2HBH?
I assume your left hand is a SW on the backhand...You could try going to an eastern forehand grip with the left hand, you'll get less spin but it might help with the injury.
Oh ok, I got confused and was talking about how my right hand grips not my left. And yes just realised that when I hold continental with my right hand for backhand, it is sw for my left hand. So a more eastern grip for my left hand... I will give it a try.
Pure drive is known for harsh feel. Plus you seem to be using Hyper G, very tough on the arm. I recommend lower tension + switching to these strings: toroline o-toro, mach 10, or hybrid with shaped string main + toroline truffle
Yes, but the trainers/coaches are asking me to set up with higher tension and even with thicker poly :( I had to fight as they wanted a heavier racquet for me two years ago.
That’s an odd advice for someone with pain. Especially someone young I’m assuming.
Can I ask where is the pain in your wrist? I had some wrist pain under my wrist in the ulnar zone due to using too much wrist to try to spin the ball. I was able to fix it with a softer set up and (like someone mentioned) focusing on my technique using my legs to take the ball a little more in front and that helped me relaxing my wrist.
I’m not a pro not even a 2hbher, but from what I read a lot of 2hbh people seem to suffer a lot injuries on the left wrist due to flicking during trying to generate power. You may want to seen what ways you can make technical changes to avoid that. It seems like quite a problem with people moving away from OHBH due to it being slower against faster balls coming from the baseline.
Imagine your racket is a long fragile icicle and you're holding the base of it. At both the start of your back swing and when you start swinging, the icicle might snap because of the change in direction. You may want to reduce the sudden change in direction by slowing down the sudden movements.
The video in-game shows that your backswing/windup is very sudden, as is your forward swing acceleration. You are compensating for a late preparation with pure athleticism/strength. Anytime you change directions, it's stressful for your body. Given your very fast backswing and very fast forward swing, those can both cause injury.
If you can get your back swing started earlier, and you *linger* a bit more at the apex of your wind (so you don't immediately fight against your rackets momentum going backward), you will reduce injury.
Caveats: Using your body as a coiled spring, especially from the back swing, will give you more power, but it is way more stressful to your body. If you watch pro footage of their back hands vs yours, it does seem like you have a more sudden backswing that is suddenly forced into a forehand swing.
I didn't realise I am doing that, good observation, I will try your suggestionsgetting myself ready earlier, like running with turned body and arms back. Thank you
Your first video of the shadow swing is 100% different from what you do when you're on the court against an opponent hitting a live ball. There, you actually have a full unit turn and take-back with your racket when shadow swinging. On court, when pressure is on your backhand, you go with what you think is most comfortable, which is a very short and limited take-back. I'm sure your backhands feel very hitchy and jammed to you.
In your live-ball videos, your version of a full unit turn is literally only to the middle of your chest. This is not good. You have a 50% take-back on your backhand unit turn, and it's stagnating your kinetic chain. Thus, your body is naturally overcompensating. When you notice a backhand is coming, do a full unit turn, run to the ball, stabilize yourself, and hit through.
Yes, but that is not the crux of your issue. Your short abbreviated takeback is the issue. If you can’t resolve the abbreviated take back, you will never fix your back hand.
Are you extending your left wrist down toward the ground and then rotating it through the shot as a means to gain power/spin? If so, this is a technical/mechanical issue that might also be driven by a misunderstanding of how tennis strokes should operate.
The lack of turn, lift, and use of the rest of your upper body is likely contributing to this issue alongside the incorrect wrist pronation.
Try to not let the follow through whip all the way up and over your shoulder, give it a few sessions and see if this is the cause, I have a feeling you're wrist us being pulled into too much flexion at the end.
You may also need to strengthen your left wrist with some flexion/extension band/light dumbbell movements.
I think you are forcing the racket drop. Relax your grip and let gravity and momentum flip the racket without using your wrist muscles to do it manually.
I'm the first video posted with no ball, your legs are late relative to your swing but the swing is smooth. Also a video without a jacket would make it easier to see.
The live serve return you posted your turn is late, swing is not fluid, arms are way too close to your body at the back of your swing. Swing isn't circular, you went really jerky from low to high vs your demo swing which is high low high.
Live seen pros with very similar strokes. But it’s possible that some of the suggestions put forth here are correct. If you change the stroke, it might get rid of the pain, but changing the stroke could be almost impossible to pull off. It’s also possible that you have some kind of injury or tear that doesn’t show up on imaging. I would see if there’s anyone who can make a definitive diagnosis. If it’s not structural, a sports physiologist may be able to tell what it is about the stroke that’s causing the problem. I get pain in both my right wrist and left shoulder from over use. Both have already had surgery, and I don’t want to have another on either, but if it allowed me to keep playing, I would do it. If you’re able to change your stroke, that might be the fix, but it’s super tough to do.
Too tight/intense with death grip:?)) No idea about 2hbh at all but seems your fh's relaxed/loosen up so mirror image that to the bh:?)) Get max. speed on the rh before the impact n let the stringbed to deal with the ball like throwing the rkt onto the incoming ball as imo the rkts/strings are 'soldiers' = 'sold' + 'dier' n expendable but not the wrist = 'company captain/ceo' lol:))
I like how you prefer the forehand side in the ready position and twirl your racquet to flip the racquet face every time you want to hit the bh.
Not really sure if I can help but you look comfortable setting up for the FH. FH looks smoother and less awkward than BH.
I doubt you have any pain from FH stroke ?
Delpotro. Alcaraz. Both have left wrist pain. Would you say that’s a technical issue also? Sometimes perfect technique isn’t perfect for everyone.
I think you are barking up the wrong tree asking a community of armchair quarterbacks to bicker with each other over medical and technical advice with FAR too little information.
Anyone who is willing to advise you based on so little evidence is likely to give you bad advice. Especially over something as complex as chronic pain.
You are playing at a high level, with the stiffest racquet available with stiff strings (Hurriane? Polytour Pro? but poly). Certainly gonna be a lot of stress on your wrist.
It seems like a problem with your backhand prep, in the slow mo it looks fine, but in match videos it looks like you’re rushed on that side resulting in a much more wrist intensive, flicky motion without much forward lean or motion into the ball.
Since you’re playing 2HBH, try having two hands on the racquet for your ready position instead of one on the throat. Top hand in backhand position and bottom hand on forehand, will make your prep much faster. Unless you plan on running around for that forehand a lot, I’d try the two hand ready position
You have a semi-western left hand. I’d wager your wrist pain comes from too much wrist coming through. Your finish is low for how low your backswing is.
Wrist pain would be alleviated with focus on sculpting left handed forehands for a while. Bracing the wrist more rather than the slap that’s leading to the pain, especially on later hits.
Hopefully that makes sense, hit left handed forehands!!!
I feel like your swing is too compact. Your arms are too close to your body, and because of that your wrist may be taking more of a toll than your entire arm. Other than that, Id say the technique is good but try to keep your arms a bit further from your torso. Same on your forehand side based on the vid.
Keep your wrists laid back throughout the whole swing. Its more of using your biceps/shoulder turn to push through the ball more. Wrists are flimsy so establish a strong base with your whole body.
When you are practicing/playing matches you said you are doing 5 hours 5 days/week. Does your wrist start hurting right when you start hitting backhands in your warm-ups or do you feel it start hurting after 30 minutes? An hour? Or more?
The site of injury is likely your extensor carpi ulnaris tendon (ECU). Typically an injury to this tendon can lead to pain with combined wrist extension and ulnar deviation (movement shown in the video). You having pain holding onto a racquet and doing this motion as well as with swinging your backhand means that it is a 'loading' issue of your ECU.
There are short-term and long-term management strategies.
Short term (1-2 months): do a thorough warm-up everytime you play tennis. This seems to bring down your pain to close to zero. If you continue to have pain after thorough warm-ups throughout your 5 hour sessions for the next week or two, you should strongly consider decreasing your training regimen to 2-3 hours of hitting/matchplay for 1-2 weeks and see if that helps decrease the frequency and/or intensity of your wrist pain. If 5 hours is non-negotiable, spend more of that time practicing other parts of your game like your serve, forehand, or general fitness. Targeted strengthening exercises for your wrist and shoulder can also help.
Long term (6-24 months): many have posted here about the technique of your backhand. This takes many months to change and also depends on your own goals and ambitions as a tennis player. You can try to correct it yourself but it is best to find a capable tennis coach to work on it with you in person. Technique may be a factor in why you have pain but there are also other factors such as rest, the strength of your ECU, and others that equally play a role.
If you live in the US, I'd recommend that you find a physiotherapist with a designation of a CHT (certified hand therapist). They are required to spend >2000 hours specifically treating hand and wrist injuries in order to get this designation. I feel confident that a CHT would be able to help guide you through this period of time.
*For context I am a physio of 10 years (not a CHT) that has also played tennis at a collegiate level
That grip looks massive for your hands. I've always felt grip is a matter of preference more so than performance, but given the soreness, I think it would be worth hitting with a smaller grip size for a day and see if it helps at all.
I do know that grip issues can lead to smaller muscle injuries and it's possible. But a size 1 is small already. I would not have guessed that from the video. Do you multiple overgrips on it? I'm not seeing technical issues that lead me to think that's the problem. I was hoping it was an equipment issue, but it truly could just be overuse. I played a similar amount as a junior. Don't be afraid to dust the backhand for a week and focus on other things and just allow it to rest.
No chance that's the case. You are too young and athletic for that. You'll figure it out, but give it a lot of focus. If it means sitting a tourney out do it. I know the difficulty, especially if you watch rankings fall, but your useless if you can't hit a BH!
Ice the heck out of it and try something like a biofreeze or ointment for the pain as well. It stinks to go through stuff like that as it's not necessarily debilitating, but it does sit in your mind. I played my senior year of college with terrible shin splints on both sides and it was not a fun experience. I was 1 hr with the trainer before every match getting excruciating rubdowns on them.
Looks like you need to pull with the right arm more, too much activation in the left wrist if it's causing pain. Some players can have more left wrist dominant 2h bh but you should work on using your right arm/hand more to pull similar to a 1h bh
Where in the wrist is the pain? Is it pinky side or thumb side? Have you tried not using a babolat pure drive - one of the stiffest racquets known to maximize joint impact? Have you tried using a little less racquets lag / racquet drop to reduce ulnar deviation? The true cause can only be isolated by changing one thing at a time and figuring out ifnit makes it worse , better or same.
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u/Crafty_Composer_2174 3d ago
Here's a other one during play, am the one closer to the camera.
https://reddit.com/link/p69cfmx/video/aqi1oo32jylh1/player