Who's No. 1? Roger Federer and Justine Henin atop The Greatest One-Handed Backhands of the Open Era

Our five-part series on The Greatest One-Handed Backhands of the Open Era concludes today. Here's the list so far:

• No. 20: Gabriela Sabatini
• No. 19: Dominic Thiem
• No. 18: Amelie Mauresmo
• No. 17: Guillermo Vilas
• No. 16: Gaston Gaudio

Full write-ups

• No. 15: Evonne Goolagong
• No. 14: Tommy Haas
• No. 13: Billie Jean King
• No. 12: Ash Barty
• No. 11: Nicolas Almagro

Full write-ups

• No. 10: Arthur Ashe
• No. 9: Stefan Edberg
• No. 8: Carla Suarez Navarro
• No. 7: Rod Laver

Full write-ups

• No. 6: Gustavo Kuerten
• No. 5: Richard Gasquet
• No. 4: Ken Rosewall
• No. 3: Stan Wawrinka

Full write-ups

Without further ado, our top two:

No. 2: Justine Henin

“The Little Backhand That Could.” That’s what the late Bud Collins, legendary bestower of nicknames, called Henin. It’s not entirely accurate, as far as monikers go. Physically, Henin was indeed on the little side for a professional tennis player, just 5’6”—at most—and 125 pounds during her playing days. But her game was about much more than a single shot. Henin’s forehand was a major weapon, her skills around the net were among the best of her era, and she made up for her lack of size with whirling speed and relentless aggression.

Still, when you watched Henin play, you could understand why Collins focused so exclusively on her backhand. The stroke stood out, both for its beauty and its potency. Henin took the racquet back around head level, leaned back, coiled her body, and threw her right side into the ball. Whipping her racquet up and across her body, she generated more speed and spin than seemed possible for someone her size. Henin was little, but in its long arc from backswing to follow-through, her backhand was as big as a tennis stroke gets.

How did a player of her stature end up using a one-hander, when the two-hander was already the standard? The short answer is, she fell in love with it. Growing up, she idolized Steffi Graf, who used a single-hander, and she liked Stefan Edberg’s version of the shot as well.

“I thought it was so beautiful,” Henin told Sky Sports. “I watched Steffi and Stefan, even if they used more slices, for me it was normal playing with a backhand like this.”

While those around her urged her to go to a two-hander, she stuck with the shot she loved, and embraced the hard work needed to make it into more than just an old-fashioned, one-dimensional chip.

“I remember when I was eight, nine, 10 years old, that I had been working on it a lot,” she said. “So many people like my dad wanted me to take it on with two hands because I was not powerful enough, but again, it was another challenge.”

Henin was little, but in its long arc from backswing to follow-through, her backhand was as big as a tennis stroke gets.

Henin would need every bit of strength and variety she could muster from the backhand side. By the time she turned pro in 1999, power hitters like Lindsay Davenport and Venus and Serena Williams were in the ascendant, while another player Henin’s size, Martina Hingis, was on her way to an early retirement. Henin had to be able to come over the ball, to move her bigger and taller opponents from side to side, to bring them forward with drop shots, to make them bend with slices, to disrupt their rhythm by changing speeds and spins and trajectories.

“It took a lot of work,” Henin told Sky, remembering what it was like “for a little girl” like her to try to master such an advanced and complex shot. “[Without a lot of power], it was important to build something which was technically very clean.”

Henin loved the one-handed backhand for its beauty; it ended up being exactly the shot she needed for its versatility. The effort it took to make it look so effortless made all the difference for her.

No. 1: Roger Federer

You can’t go wrong putting Roger Federer at the top of any tennis listicle, right? When it comes to the one-handed backhand, though, some might disagree.

Federer, you could point out, didn’t generate as much pace with his topspin drive from that side as his friend Stan Wawrinka did. You might also bring up the fact that Rafael Nadal exploited Federer’s one-hander for years with his left-handed forehand. And relative to his own game, Federer’s backhand surely came in third best. His serve and forehand were the shots that elevated him above the pack.

Yet as far as one-handers in the Open Era go, Federer’s was still the gold standard. It was complete. It was technically sound, especially on the slice. It gave him more tactical options than his opponents, options that he used more thoughtfully than anyone else. It made transitioning to net, something he did more effectively than most of his peers, a simpler proposition.

Almost as important, Federer’s one-hander made his game the most famously graceful of its time. Would he have become the white-jacket-wearing symbol of tennis style and beauty if he had used a two-handed backhand? It’s harder to imagine.

Finally, his single-hander was the shot that he transformed late in his career, and that subsequently transformed his rivalry with Nadal, and made him the oldest man in the Open Era to reach No. 1, at 36 years and 10 months.

Like Henin, Federer could easily have opted for two hands, the way junior rivals of his like Marat Safin, Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt and Juan Carlos Ferrero did. But Federer’s own heroes—Edberg, Pete Sampras, Boris Becker—used one-handed backhands. Just as important, his early coach, Peter Carter of Australia, believed in the shot, and in the traditional, Aussie-style attacking game that it engenders.

“I got that beautiful one-handed backhand from Peter,” Federer told journalist Christopher Clarey, with his characteristic aversion for false modesty.

If Federer’s serve and forehand were his point-enders, his backhand was his facilitator. It did a little bit of everything for him.

During his rise to No. 1, in the mid-2000s, Federer began using a teasing little crosscourt chip, which forced his opponents to move forward and bend down, and left them out of position for the next ball. While Federer’s backhand return wasn’t as consistently dangerous as Novak Djokovic’s or Andre Agassi’s, he reflexed his share of flat winners with it, and his chip was steady and stayed low. When opponents, trying to avoid his forehand, approached to his backhand, Federer could take it on the short hop and flick it at their feet with uncanny accuracy. In his prime, his backhand pass was an underrated part of his arsenal.

If Federer’s serve and forehand were his point-enders, his backhand was his facilitator. It did a little bit of everything for him.

Before he was through, Federer also made his backhand into a point-winning stoke of its own. It happened in the fifth set of the 2017 Australian Open against Nadal.

Down a break with Rafa serving at 3-2, the two began the type of crosscourt rally that had favored Nadal for more than a decade. Nadal looped a forehand to Federer’s backhand, as he had done so many times before. But this time something different happened. Federer sent an even higher loop back, and pushed Nadal off the baseline. After gaining the court-position advantage, Federer threw caution to the wind, took a backhand on the rise and sent it crosscourt for a match-changing, career-changing winner. Nadal was shook. Federer went on to win his 18th major title.

“I told myself to play free,” Federer said afterward. “Be free in your head, be free in your shots, go for it.”

The dream of many of us is to play tennis just the way Federer described it, with total freedom; to show what we can do when there are no limits or obstacles in our way. Watching Federer in full flight, seeing him rise up on the toes of his right foot like a ballet dancer and sweep through the long arc of his one-handed backhand, was to see to that freedom in action.