Laver: 'Djokovic, Federer, Nadal have different rackets than in our days'

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Rod Laver commented on the disadvantages of having a one-handed backhand compared to a two-handed.

The Australian said: "Sometimes it's tough for a double-handed person to be able to -- you know, yes, you can play the ball well. There are some that perfect it. Novak Djokovic is probably the first one that's been great. But I think the one hand gives you more flexibility of being able to do a lot more different shots. You know, I think there is no answer to saying, Well, what do you want? But if you happen to be a young child picking up, and a lot of times back in the wooden days you had to have two hands on your racquet, otherwise you couldn't lift it. So that is one of the reasons wooden racquets had a bunch of players who used two hands. But now you have racquets, I don't know whether it's accurate or not, but I think they said Rafael Nadal has something that weighs about six ounces. You whip that thing around. But you've got a lot of players of today that have, you know, unbelievable backhands, single-handers. But you also have the same group that are double-handers. I think the flair is, you know, what can you really do with the game. I think there is a lot that semi-use single hand or sometimes go to double hands. But I think the single hand allows you more flexibility. And you look at not too many of the double-handers from the baseline try to make a drop shot. Novak can certainly do it, but he never does it from back behind the baseline at all. He's up ready and catches the ball early and comes under it. So he can do it. But you're looking at someone like Roger Federer, you know, he'll drop shot a serve, service return. So, you know, one single hand maybe supplies more of that as opposed to the double-hander which probably goes with more power and speed."

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from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2ZCrmPR

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