2017 Aussie Open final: Federer frees his backhand—and starts a renaissance at 35 By 2017, the glory years of the Federer-Nadal rivalry were a distant memory. Federer, 35, was coming back from a ...

More than a year after his retirement, Roger Federer remains the poster boy for the one-handed backhand – tennis’s most aesthetic shot. Yet he could also be the key to its decline.

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.

In the Melbourne final, Federer barely sliced a return at all, driving backhand after backhand, 14 of them for winners, including eight in the deciding set as he won his record 18th grand slam title.

Roger Federer has named his toughest tennis opponent of all time and admits he ‘struggled’ when playing against him on the ATP Tour. Swiss legend Federer entered retirement in 2022 after ...

In addition to Federer, Stan Wawrinka and Dominic Thiem won Grand Slam titles with the shot. Among the top 10 men now, only Stefanos Tsitsipas plays with a one-handed backhand.

Federer had won four Grand Slam titles by then; he would win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 2005 as well, moving 6-1 ahead in a title count that would finish 22-20 in Nadal’s favor.

Federer fired an ace to close the second set and broke Gonzalez in the seventh game of the third. He earned triple championship point with a forehand winner and closed it with a backhand down the line ...

Federer has won 17 finals in a row heading into his match against Nadal, a crafty left-hander who has two tour victories this season and a 22-4 record. "I'm used to these big occasions," Federer said.