The Single Handed BackHand - Championship Factor?

Touching on a subject quite popular with Tenez.

I decided to look back to every Grand Slam Championship from 1990 to now to see how many were won by players who had SHBH and a DHBH

My findings were:

Wimbledon
16 - SHBH
5 - DHBH

US Open
14 - SHBH
7 - DHBH

Australian Open
10 - SHBH
12 - DHBH

French Open
8 - SHBH
14 - DHBH

So in total

48 - SHBH
38 - DHBH

What do we guys think? Is the BH the difference maker in tennis nowadays?

Hmmmm - 13 of those SBH Wimbledons, 10 of those SBH US Opens, and 6 of those SBH Aus Opens were Federer and Sampras combined.

I think that this shows two things:

a. Fed and Sampras were freaks - but we did not need this chart for that
b. Slower surfaces favour DHBH - which is not rocket science.

As I understand it, Sampras started with a DHBH and converted to a SBH. It worked for him, but how many young players would be advised to do that in today's game?

So, not a difference maker, but a stroke that you'd teach to almost any youngster nowadays.

It leaves 18 that were won by other players. So that deserves credit in itself without being dismissed.

With Wimbledon being deemed slower than Hardcourts, it is more impressive that the Australian Open has seen more DHBH winners than Wimbledon.

I am not dismissing anything, just pointing out that the statistics are slightly skewed by two amazing careers.

Wimbledon was lightening fast for about 10 of those years don't forget - during the 1990's I think Agassi was the only DHBH winner there, the others were Ivanesivic 2001 (whose game was really a fast-court game on account of his serve), Hewitt 2002 and Nadal.

The US Open has always been a fast hardcourt in no small part because of the ball they use (Agassi never bested Sampras there, but he bested him in Australia).

I am not at all surprised that the Aus Open has more DHBH winners than Wimbledon because it was way slower for most of the period and has been a leveller between the typical fast-court styles and slower-court styles. The balance of DHBH winners over the period could be said to turn on the fact that it was Agassi's best slam.

The DHBH winners at the US have been Nadal, Del Potro, Roddick, Hewitt, Safin, and Agassi (x2) - only Agassi won his in the 1990's.

Agassi stands out as the best DHBH winner on truly fast surfaces, otherwise I suppose I'd have to agree that supremacy of the DHBH as an all-court tool has begun to emerge reasonably clearly since 2000 with, perhaps, only really Federer holding the tide at slams since then.

Yep, Pete and Roger type players dont come along often - talent is talent.

A comparison of the 80s would be interesting as you had great SHBH and DHBH players (Mac, Connors, Borg, Lendl, Wilander, Becker, Edberg).

I think SHBH players can still cut the mustard even though the game is quicker now. Its just that the ones we have out there arent by and large good enough to win slams.

Lydian - I agree and I'd expect to find a similar pattern of DHBH doing better on the slower/all court surfaces and SHB doing better on the faster surfaces although for a short period patterns are heavily influenced by individual careers.