His pinpoint serve and lethal inside-out forehand may have been the bedrock of his 20 Grand Slam titles, but Roger Federer remains synonymous with the one-handed backhand, whether a ripped winner screaming past an opponent or a skidding slice leaving them a sitting duck in the middle of the court.On his return to the U.S. Open, ahead of his induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, Federer, 45, spoke at a news conference about a shot that he made his own, but which has been on the decline in professional tennis for many years.“My coaches when I was growing up were, I would say, 90 per cent one-handers,” the five-time champion in New York said. “So I think when your coach is a one-handed tennis player, you will most likely be a one-handed tennis player too.“Nowadays, probably the coaches are mostly double-handed players, and it’s just easier to teach a kid to have two hands on the backhand side.”Only six players in the ATP top 100 — Lorenzo Musetti, Denis Shapovalov, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Daniel Altmaier, Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard and Aleksandar Kovacevic — use the shot.How do tennis rankings work?Ava Wallace and Lia GriffinNo player with a one-handed backhand has reached a Grand Slam semifinal in 2026. If no one does so at the U.S. Open, it will be the first year since the inaugural Wimbledon in 1877 without at least one player using the shot in the last four of a major.