Why You Need a Two-Handed Backhand in Pickleball

If you really need any further convincing at this point, let me direct your attention to Ben Johns.

When I first started playing pickleball almost six years ago, almost nobody had a two-handed backhand. The game was much slower then, and almost everyone used just their dominant hand on both wings.

Today, it seems like everyone has a two-handed backhand, even those without a tennis background. If you are a rec or amateur player, here’s why you need to develop a two-handed backhand, and soon, looking at each area of the court.

At the Kitchen

If you need a pro player to convince you that learning a two-handed backhand dink is valuable in today’s pickleball world, let me direct your attention to Ben Johns.

Ben, up until the last 6-8 months or so, utilized exclusively a one-handed backhand dink and counter. Today, you will see him go to the toey early and often.

Firefights at the net are faster, dinks are more precise and aggressive, and off the bounce speedups are becoming harder to read and counter. As a result, the two-handed backhand has arrived and is crucial to controlling and countering the overall speed of the game at the kitchen.

Take the dink for example.

• If someone can roll the dink aggressively cross court to your backhand, having a two-handed backhand dink not only forces you to get closer to the ball with your feet, but it also gives you extra control and the ability to hit a topspin/aggressive dink back.
• Without adding the extra hand, it’s very difficult to hit anything but a neutral or defensive dink when your opponent is aggressively dinking to your backhand.
• Additionally, the twoey is crucial when countering, because speedups have never been faster.

If you are even a millisecond late on a one-handed backhand counter when someone speeds up your line, you can shank or pop up the counter. Adding the second hand adds support and helps you keep the paddle face stable in order to counter the ball down.

Resets

Let me start this portion by saying this: You are not resetting enough (or good enough) from the transition zone.

I don’t need to watch you play to know that almost every single amateur player is still trying to play offense from the transition zone instead of hitting a reset and moving forward.

Developing a twoey backhand reset will improve your resets by doing two main things.

1. First, it will force your paddle more in front, which will help you absorb pace and prevent the paddle from getting too far behind you, which more easily happens when you use one hand.
2. Second, it should force you to get lower to the ground, which will help you get under the ball and use touch to place it just in front of your opponents, bouncing in the Kitchen across the net.

The two-handed backhand reset is more stable and provides more control to hit the soft, touchy shot needed get to the kitchen.

From the Baseline

For the same reasons mentioned above, hitting a twoey drop (assuming you can execute) is better than hitting a one-handed backhand drop.

From the baseline, you should develop hitting a top spin two-handed backhand drop or drip (drop and drive hybrid). This will enable you to get the ball over the net and make it start dipping as it crosses the net before it reaches your opponent, causing them to have to hit up on the fourth shot volley.

This is almost impossible to do with a traditional one-handed backhand drop, which either needs to be totally flat or sliced.

From a drive standpoint, I coach my amateur students to almost never drive the backhand.

Unless your backhand is just significantly better (rare but not impossible), I would just develop a two-handed drop or drip.

Pickleball is fun because it is constantly evolving. The game is getting faster, more athletic, and more powerful with each passing month.

Players of all athletic backgrounds are starting to play, and to continue leveling up, you must be willing and able to adapt. Learning a two-handed backhand for all shots everywhere on the court is essential to improving your game.

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