Stan Wawrinka delivered a whole host of hard-to-believe one-handed backhands during his French Open final upset of Novak Djokovic, but none was better than this gem around the net post.
Stan Wawrinka just threaded the needle, hit a backhand around the net post and in for his 41st winner.
— SI Tennis (@SI_Tennis) June 7, 2015
Shot of the tournament? #RG15
ICYMI, Stan hit the shot of the year with this gorgeous around the net post BH in set three: http://t.co/hTrLUouJAL
— TennisNow (@Tennis_Now) June 7, 2015
So… is that allowed? By-passing the net altogether? Also, it does look to me that it would’ve hit the band at least, it wasn’t too high.
Otherwise, yes, great shot!
Quill, yes, it is allowed.
It’s an old rule : ‘You don’t have to hit the ball over the net. Legally, you can hit around the net post into your opponent’s court, even if your shot travels lower than the net. And you shot can hit the net post and ricochet into your opponent’s court. That’s legal. However, if there’s a scoreboard attached to the post, that’s not considered a fixture. If your shot hits that, you lose the point, no matter where your shot lands.’
Rafa has also done this (AO 2010):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0UW1_oRrjA
Rafa has done this multiple times actually. The forehand in the video above was unreal because of the bend on the ball.
Look for the forehand rafa hit against stan in Australian open 2007 I think…he hit that one around the net post.
He also hit one backhand DTL around the net post in his match against Gasquet in Monte carlo 2005! A similar winner to that hit by stan.
Anyway, stan’s backhand is spectacular. just wow
Stanimal was amazing and deserved the trophy.
This doesn’t count
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6SzspJ0GCk
Reblogged this on Tennis Abides.
That truly was an amazing shot by Stan. I replayed it a few times just to see it again and again. One of many brilliant shots throughout the match.
The amount of winners hit by Stan in that match was unreal. At last count when I watched the replay last night on the tennis channel, it was 58!
That BH was on fire and he’s no slouch with the FH either. It was like ‘shoot the duck’, the duck in this case being you know who.