The thumb on the backhand

The thumb is an important part of the backhand. It gives the shot the back and stability to drive the racket into the ball. However, the perfect placement of the thumb on the backhand often handles the forehand. I have written about this before, but it is one of those things that might need memories. It is also one of those things where the paradigm has changed – coaches when I started to say that players had no time to change their grip between forehand and backhand. But if you have time to go from left to side to cover the wide forehand and backhand, you have time to make a small, subtle change in your grip.

The most important thing is that you generally have to have a slightly different grip on the backhand than on the forehand, so that your thumb can float the racket more into the ball. How do you do this? It’s pretty simple.

First find the perfect grip for your forehand. Experiment and see how top players are doing. (Ask them or a coach.) In general, if you keep the racket in front of you, you may want to turn the top of the racket a little to the left (for the right hand), which closes it somewhat on the forehand side.

For the backhand, put more pressure on the racket with the thumb, which moves the top of the racket slightly to the right, which closes it somewhat to the backhand side. This gives a perfect backhand grab, with the thumb in perfect position to drive the racket through the ball. The actual grip change is small, but the result can be important in improving your backhand. (Or your forehand if you played it with a backhand grabbed.)

Here is the even bigger key – you have to practice this. That first means away from the table (shadow practice) and then at the table. It must be reflexive so that you switch to the right grip while you go to the ball and your backswing starts. When that happens, you will find that with much more convenience you hits shots than before – and with the thumb behind the backhand it will have more thump.