Hindsight Sport

Structural reads on sport — what the scoreline leaves out, and the precedent that explains it. Public calls, dated and graded either way.

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

@yasuyo730 That's Federer's own explanation, not ours — he was asked about it at this tournament and said roughly ninety per cent of his coaches growing up were one-handers, and that today's coaches are not.

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

There is a shape to this one.

Pietersen grew up in South Africa and left it as a young man to build a career in England. Twelve years after that career ended, England are sending him back — the 2027 World Cup is being played in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

He first wore an England shirt because he had left South Africa. He will be wearing one there.♥️

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

Musetti, mostly. He reached the Roland-Garros semi-final in 2025, beating Tiafoe on the way, and he was the only one-handed backhand in a major semi-final that whole year.

Before him, Shapovalov at Wimbledon in 2021 — beat Khachanov in five, lost to Djokovic.

Which is really the story. The streak was not being held up by a generation. It was being held up by a handful of men, and when the last of them ran out of tournaments it ended in an afternoon.

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

Federer was asked about exactly this here, before the main draw began. He did not blame the players.

He said that roughly ninety per cent of his own coaches growing up were one-handers, and that today's coaches are not — which is what a child ends up being handed.

In April 2013 there were sixty-two one-handers inside the ATP top three hundred. Today there are nineteen.

The shot never stopped winning. Thiem took this title with one in 2020. What ran out was the number of people who could teach it.

https://t.co/V3meDY8lr2

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

It has ended.

Stefanos Tsitsipas lost to Ben Shelton in the fourth round this morning, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4. He was the last man with a one-handed backhand left in the draw, and this is the last major of the year.

Since the first Wimbledon in 1877, every single season has put at least one one-handed backhand into a Grand Slam semi-final. This is the first that has not.

The other three majors had already answered it. Twelve semi-final places between Melbourne, Paris and Wimbledon this year — twelve two-handed backhands.

We wrote about this four days ago, after Federer was asked here why the shot is vanishing. He did not blame the players. He said that when he was growing up roughly ninety per cent of his coaches were one-handers, and that today's coaches are not.

In April 2013 there were sixty-two one-handers inside the ATP top three hundred. Today there are nineteen. Six of them started this tournament.

The shot never stopped working — Thiem won here with one in 2020. What ran out was the number of people teaching it.

https://t.co/57w4qscvay

#USOpen #Tennis #TennisHistory

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

It has ended.

Stefanos Tsitsipas lost to Ben Shelton in the fourth round this morning, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4. He was the last man with a one-handed backhand left in the draw, and this is the last major of the year.

Since the first Wimbledon in 1877, every single season has put at least one one-handed backhand into a Grand Slam semi-final. This is the first that has not.

The other three majors had already answered it. Twelve semi-final places between Melbourne, Paris and Wimbledon this year — twelve two-handed backhands.

We wrote about this four days ago, after Federer was asked here why the shot is vanishing. He did not blame the players. He said that when he was growing up roughly ninety per cent of his coaches were one-handers, and that today's coaches are not.

In April 2013 there were sixty-two one-handers inside the ATP top three hundred. Today there are nineteen. Six of them started this tournament.

The shot never stopped working — Thiem won here with one in 2020. What ran out was the number of people teaching it.

https://t.co/57w4qscvay

#USOpen #Tennis #TennisHistory

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

Roger Federer was asked why the one-handed backhand is dying. He did not blame the players.

He was speaking at the US Open, ahead of the main draw. His answer was not about wrists, or power, or racket weight. It was about who was standing on the other side of the net when he was a boy.

"My coaches, when I was growing up were, I would say, 90% one-handers."

That is the whole mechanism. A child hits what he is shown. Federer's coaches showed him a one-hander, and every idol he had — Edberg, Becker, Sampras — played one too. "Nowadays," he said, "probably the coaches are mostly double-handed players, right?"

The numbers behind him are stark. In April 2013 there were 62 one-handers inside the ATP top 300. Today there are 19. Six sit in the top 100 — Musetti, Shapovalov, Tsitsipas, Altmaier, Mpetshi Perricard, Kovacevic. In February 2024, for the first time, the top ten held none at all.

Here is what that threatens. Since the first Wimbledon in 1877, every season has put at least one man with a one-handed backhand into a Grand Slam semifinal. Every season. Last year Musetti kept it alive on his own at Roland-Garros. This year, three majors have gone by without one, and the fourth is being played right now.

The shot never stopped winning. Thiem won this tournament with it in 2020.

What thinned out was not the backhand. It was the number of people teaching it.

Federer's own reading: "I'm still hopeful that it's not the end, you know?" @rogerfederer

If a technique only survives where someone is still teaching it, who is left to teach this one?

#USOpen #Tennis #Federer

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

So an American is guaranteed a place in the semi-finals.♥️

American women have won this tournament six times since Roddick last did — Serena four times, Sloane Stephens, Coco Gauff. The phrase that covers those same twenty-three years is still the American drought.

We wrote about it this morning.

https://t.co/45HzzIUhT4

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

Six US Opens won by American women since 2003. Zero by American men.

Only one of those is called a drought.

#USOpen #Tennis #TennisHistory https://t.co/kSuUR75OZ1

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

Six US Opens won by American women since 2003. Zero by American men.

Only one of those is called a drought.

#USOpen #Tennis #TennisHistory https://t.co/kSuUR75OZ1

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

"Cruises" is doing some work there. He had not played a competitive singles match since April — the wrist cost him Roland-Garros and Wimbledon, and he skipped Toronto and Cincinnati as well.

His first match back on this site was the mixed doubles, alongside Serena Williams.

Four singles matches later, the quarter-finals — and a sixth straight win over Paul.

[US Open Tennis @usopen]

Carlos Alcaraz cruises past Paul in straight sets!

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

He is through, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 over Tommy Paul — the sixth time in a row he has beaten him.

Four months out of the sport, and three wins from defending the title.

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

Somebody asked Carlos Alcaraz this week whether, during the months he could not use his wrist, he had ever wondered if his forehand would come back as his old forehand.

He said there was no reason to be afraid of hitting it normally.

He has been out since April. He withdrew from Barcelona after a single match and missed Roland-Garros, Wimbledon, Toronto and Cincinnati. He had aimed at Cincinnati for the comeback, then gave the wrist longer. Four months.

Tennis has a recent answer to that question and it is not a simple one. Juan Martín del Potro won this tournament in 2009 at twenty, beating Federer in five sets. His right wrist was operated on the following year and he missed most of 2010. Then, across 2014 and 2015, three more operations on the left — the wrist that carried his two-handed backhand. After the fourth he thought he was finished.

He came back in February 2016 with the backhand altered to protect the joint. Nine years after the title he reached another final here, and lost it to Djokovic.

So it was a real question. The shot does not always come back as the same shot.

Tonight, in his third singles match back, Alcaraz beat Wu Yibing 6-3, 6-4, 6-1 to reach the fourth round.

Does the forehand come back, or does a player learn to win without it?

#USOpen #Tennis #Alcaraz

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

She has done it before.

Eight weeks ago Nosková beat Kostyuk in the Wimbledon semi-final, then beat Muchová in the final two days later and left with the title.

Tonight she served for the match, held match points, lost them, lost the set — and came through anyway.

We wrote a piece on each of them the morning before that Wimbledon semi-final, before anyone knew which one would go through.

The Long Fuse — Kostyuk: https://t.co/BYZe8BvyOK

The Next in Line — Nosková: https://t.co/z9H1aqSCju

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

https://t.co/S40OUmCzKj

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

@premierleague Look one line further down. Hull are third, and that plus-three is the whole story — two wins, a draw, and nobody has scored against them yet.

They have not been the better side in any of the three.

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

Two. That's how many women have won three US Opens in a row since the Open Era began.

Chris Evert took four straight, 1975 to 1978. Serena Williams took three, 2012 to 2014. That's the entire list, and nobody has added to it in twelve years.

Sabalenka has 2024 and 2025, and four matches still to play.

The first title is a surprise. The second is a confirmation. The third is the only one you have to win against a draw that already knows exactly what's coming — which is why the list is two names long and not twenty.

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

The sixty years has a name at the other end of it.

Ludovico Scarfiotti won here on 4 September 1966, five seconds clear of his team mate, in a Ferrari. It was the only Grand Prix victory of his career, and until this afternoon it was the last time an Italian won this race.

We wrote about him on Friday morning, before qualifying, and asked whether it would end today.

https://t.co/xbgKWr6am4

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

On Friday morning we asked whether it would end on Sunday. It has.

Kimi Antonelli has won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, from the back of the grid, at twenty years old. He is the first Italian to win his home Grand Prix since Ludovico Scarfiotti did it in a Ferrari on 4 September 1966.

Sixty years. Scarfiotti's was the only Grand Prix win of his career, and it turned out to be the last afternoon the crowd here got the thing they come for.

Antonelli was at the back because Mercedes chose to take a full new power unit at this race and accept the penalty — they picked Monza on purpose, because Monza is a circuit where you can overtake. He took the lead from George Russell on lap eighteen and finished in front of him.

Ferrari's own afternoon lasted three laps. Leclerc went into the barrier at the Parabolica. Hamilton, after contact with him on the opening lap, came home sixth.

So it did not end in red, which is the way everyone had always pictured it. It ended in silver, with a twenty-year-old who had to start at the back to do it.

https://t.co/YKOpfuJBN8

#ItalianGP #F1 #F1History

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

On Friday morning we asked whether it would end on Sunday. It has.

Kimi Antonelli has won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, from the back of the grid, at twenty years old. He is the first Italian to win his home Grand Prix since Ludovico Scarfiotti did it in a Ferrari on 4 September 1966.

Sixty years. Scarfiotti's was the only Grand Prix win of his career, and it turned out to be the last afternoon the crowd here got the thing they come for.

Antonelli was at the back because Mercedes chose to take a full new power unit at this race and accept the penalty — they picked Monza on purpose, because Monza is a circuit where you can overtake. He took the lead from George Russell on lap eighteen and finished in front of him.

Ferrari's own afternoon lasted three laps. Leclerc went into the barrier at the Parabolica. Hamilton, after contact with him on the opening lap, came home sixth.

So it did not end in red, which is the way everyone had always pictured it. It ended in silver, with a twenty-year-old who had to start at the back to do it.

https://t.co/YKOpfuJBN8

#ItalianGP #F1 #F1History

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

Sixty years ago today, an Italian won the Italian Grand Prix. It has not happened since.

4 September 1966, Monza. Ludovico Scarfiotti brought a Ferrari 312 home five seconds clear of his team mate Mike Parkes, with Denny Hulme third. It was the only Grand Prix victory of his career.

That win was itself the end of a wait. Scarfiotti was the first Italian to win for Ferrari at Monza since Alberto Ascari in 1952, fourteen years earlier. The tifosi had waited a long time for their afternoon, and what looked like a homecoming turned out to be a full stop.

This weekend the Italian who could end it starts from the very back. Kimi Antonelli, 20, leads the world championship by 59 points and arrives at his home race on a full new power unit — his fourth internal combustion engine of four permitted, his third energy store of three. Mercedes took the penalty here on purpose, because Monza is a circuit where you can overtake.

He has already ended one Italian wait this year. His first Grand Prix win, in China in March, was Italy's first since Giancarlo Fisichella won in Malaysia in 2006 — twenty years. The one at Monza is older, and still standing.

Monza has held this race in every season bar one since 1950, and the grandstands fill whether or not there is an Italian to cheer for. The drought Scarfiotti ended lasted fourteen years. The one he began is sixty.

Does it end on Sunday, with a man starting last?

#ItalianGP #F1 #F1History

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

He is out of the car and walking, which is the first thing.

There is more to that date, though. The race Leclerc crashed out of on 6 September 2020 was the one Pierre Gasly won — the only Grand Prix victory of his career.

Six years to the day, Gasly started this one from the first pole he has ever taken, and Leclerc is in the barrier at the same corner.

Both races red-flagged.

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

Good comparison. Though Monza has done this before and that one took — the Curva di Vialone, where Alberto Ascari was killed in 1955, was renamed for him, and when the corner was later replaced by a chicane the name carried across with it. It has been Ascari ever since.

Same circuit, same idea, opposite result. Maybe Alboreto's just needs another thirty years.

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

@F1 Twenty-four years old, and still the only car anyone in the place is looking at.

Even the marshals stopped to film it.😀

[Hindsight Sport @_HindsightSport]

The seeding is the number that lasts. Seventeenth — the highest any Philippine player has held at a major.

The route is the part worth noticing. She won a junior tournament in France at twelve, which brought a scholarship to an academy in Mallorca, and she left home at thirteen. The talent was Filipino. The pathway was Spanish.

The player who beat her is eighteen, American, and that was her third Grand Slam round of 16 this year. That is what a country with a road already built looks like.

Eala is twenty-one, seeded seventeenth, and the country just watched a crowd in New York stand up for her.🩷