A 149-Year Grand Slam Streak Just Died — Tennis Is Losing the One-Handed Backhand
GOATIFYA 149-year Grand Slam streak has ended at the US Open, and it has nothing to do with a player’s nationality, ranking or title count. For the first time since Wimbledon began in 1877, an entire calendar year of men’s and women’s majors will pass without a one-handed backhand player reaching a singles semifinal.
Stefanos Tsitsipas was the last player carrying that tradition into the second week in New York. He reached the fourth round after beating Arthur Fils, Lloyd Harris and Jiri Lehecka, but Ben Shelton’s straight-sets win at Arthur Ashe Stadium removed the final one-hander from the draw before the quarterfinals.
That makes the 2026 US Open a genuine line in tennis history. The one-handed backhand once defined the sport. Now the stroke that connected generations from John McEnroe and Pete Sampras to Roger Federer, Dominic Thiem and Tsitsipas has become rare enough that a run stretching back to the Victorian era could disappear in a single round.
The one-handed backhand did not suddenly fail — modern tennis slowly squeezed it out
The shift has been building for decades. Two hands give players more stability against heavy pace, make high balls easier to control and reduce the amount of precise timing required when returning modern serves from aggressive court positions. Once players such as Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg and Chris Evert proved the two-hander could thrive at the highest level, the technical balance of the sport began to move.
By the 1990s, the one-handed backhand was already losing ground. Andre Agassi and Monica Seles showed how much topspin and early ball-striking could be generated with two hands, while the increasing speed and physicality of baseline tennis made reliability under pressure more valuable than stylistic tradition.
The one-hander never disappeared because elite players kept reviving it. McEnroe and Ivan Lendl carried it through the 1980s. Sampras and Stefan Edberg kept it visible in the next decade. Federer then turned the shot into one of the defining images of the 2000s and 2010s while winning 20 Grand Slam singles titles.
Federer can still see a pathway — but the coaching pipeline matters
Federer’s return to New York during the 2026 US Open made the timing of the milestone even more striking. The Swiss great was celebrated at the tournament and discussed the stroke’s future with the perspective of someone who made it look natural for two decades.
His broader point was practical rather than nostalgic: technique reproduces itself through coaching. Players often learn what their coaches understand best, and the current generation of coaches increasingly comes from a two-handed era. If the easier, more stable option is also the one most instructors teach first, fewer young players ever reach the stage where a single-handed backhand becomes a serious long-term choice.
That creates a feedback loop. Fewer one-handed professionals mean fewer future coaches with deep experience teaching it. Fewer coaches teaching it means an even smaller next generation. The shot does not have to become ineffective to disappear; it only has to become the less attractive developmental gamble.
Thiem and Henin show how far the title lineage has receded
The last men’s US Open champion to win with a one-handed backhand was Dominic Thiem in 2020. He recovered from two sets down against Alexander Zverev in an empty Arthur Ashe Stadium and won the deciding-set tiebreak, a victory that now looks like one of the final major-title moments for the stroke.
On the women’s side, the gap is even larger. Justine Henin’s 2007 US Open title remains the most recent women’s singles championship in New York won with a one-hander. Modern women’s tennis has moved overwhelmingly toward two hands, making the men’s decline feel less like an isolated trend and more like the later phase of the same technical evolution.
Tsitsipas, Musetti and Shapovalov are now carrying a shrinking tradition
Since Federer retired, only Tsitsipas, Lorenzo Musetti and Denis Shapovalov have reached Grand Slam semifinals while using a one-handed backhand. All three were in the 2026 US Open main draw, but none survived to the quarterfinals. Tsitsipas lasted the longest and became the player whose exit formally ended the 149-year streak.
Tsitsipas has spoken about the one-hander as an endangered technique, while Musetti has acknowledged the practical advantages the two-handed backhand offers in today’s game. Their comments capture the tension perfectly. Players can love the shot’s feel, variety and visual identity while still recognizing why junior coaches increasingly choose the safer developmental route.
The extinction language may sound dramatic, but the numbers behind it are hard to ignore. A technique that once dominated professional tennis now needs a small handful of elite players to keep its Grand Slam relevance alive. One injury, one bad draw or one difficult week can suddenly erase it from the final stages of a major.
The 149-year streak ending matters because tennis is losing variety
This is not an argument that the two-handed backhand is somehow inferior. In the modern game it is often the more efficient solution. The concern is what disappears when every player is pushed toward the same technical answer.
The one-handed backhand changes rally geometry. It encourages different slices, different transition patterns and different ways of handling balls outside the ideal strike zone. At its best, it can create a style that looks and behaves unlike the standard baseline template. That variety has always been part of tennis’s appeal.
Shelton did not end the one-handed backhand. He simply became the opponent standing across the net when a century-and-a-half pattern finally broke. Tsitsipas, Musetti and Shapovalov can still start another streak at the next major, and a future junior could yet make the shot fashionable again. But the 2026 US Open has made the trend impossible to dismiss: one of tennis’s signature techniques is no longer guaranteed a place anywhere near the sport’s biggest weekends.
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