Both armed with a blistering single-handed
backhand, the match between the 34-year-old Wawrinka, three-times Grand Slam winner, and the 20-year-old Tsitsipas, who had been trying to become the first Greek player to reach the Roland Garros quarter-finals, more than lived up to its billing.
In the first set both players hold their respective game till 5-5all where Abdullah managed to break 11th game of Ahmed and took the lead 6-5 and held his serve by playing good forehand and
backhand drives.
Kenya Ismael Changawa plays a
backhand shot to Albert Njogu during their Britam Kenya Open Tennis Championship semi-final match on September 21, 2018 at Nairobi Club.
until suddenly Agassi hits a hard heavy cross-court
backhand that pulls Federer way out wide to his ad (left) side, and Federer gets to it but slices the stretch
backhand short, a couple of feet past the service line, which of course is the sort of thing Agassi dines out on, and as Federer's scrambling to reverse and get back to centre, Agassi's moving in to take the short ball on the rise, and he smacks it hard right back into the same ad corner, trying to wrong-foot Federer, which in fact he does - Federer's still near the corner, but running towards the centreline, and the ball's heading to a point behind him now, where he just was, and there's no time to turn his body around, and Agassi's following the shot into the net at an angle from the
backhand side ...
Moments later he had opened up three break points of his own and with an imperious swipe of his
backhand he pinned the big man into a corner and forced him to find the net from behind his baseline.
But it seems that the SABR may have also been the catalyst for the improvement in Federer's
backhand that was so instrumental in helping him to Australian Open victory at the start of this year, and looks set to spearhead his assault on Wimbledon.
There was del Potro, pounding those intimidating forehands and big serves and only showing signs of his years of wrist troubles when trying to hit his
backhand while advancing to the second round with a 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 victory over qualifier Guido Pella in an all-Argentine matchup.
Defending champion Wawrinka (above) lacks the off-court elegance of his fellow Swiss Roger Federer - in fact with his pock-marked face and often strange attire, he looks like he sleeps beneath a dartboard - but his
backhand is a thing of beauty, and that's no
backhanded compliment.
Repeat impact from the ball hitting the racket when one-handed
backhand stroke is performed is believed to be related to tennis elbow syndrome (Roetert and Groppel, 2001).
This time Federer came up with a little piece of magic, feathering a
backhand half-volley drop shot off a dipping pass onto the line.
Some fine returning by Murray, from both sides of the court, set up another break chance and a netted
backhand by Goffin gifted the two-time major winner a 3-0 lead.