One of the biggest changes to how pickleball is played today, as compared to just 10 years ago, is today’s usage by so many players of the two-hand backhand (the “twoey”). It has gone from a shot almost never seen, to a commonplace shot used by a majority of pros. How did this happen?

Although pickleball has been around for more than 50 years, it is still a game undergoing constant change. The equipment changes, the players change, the ball changes, and consequently player strategy changes. The constant evolution of pickleball has resulted in a game that does not look the same as it did just 10 years ago.

The changes to pickleball can easily be seen by watching YouTube videos of pickleball matches from years gone by. Many videos exist showing the best players at the US Open or Nationals, going back to 2015. In watching these videos, we see a variety of differences to today’s game, but the one we are focusing on today is the rarity of the twoey years ago.

One trailblazer of the twoey was Simone Jardim. Jardim was using the twoey when almost no one else was doing so. Jardim, of course, was the dominant women’s player in the years before Anna Leigh Waters.  Perhaps because of Jardim’s influence, the use of the twoey spread first among women pros. It went from a shot used pretty much only by Jardim, to a shot used by a few women pros, to today’s game where the majority of women pros employ a twoey.

On the men’s side, the situation has been different. It is virtually impossible to find video of a male pro using the twoey going back 10 years. I recall first seeing it at Nationals around 2018, when I played Dave Fleming. Fleming is better known today as the voice of the PPA Tour, but once upon a time, Fleming was a top senior pro. Fleming used the twoey during his many years of playing tennis. He automatically started using it when he first played pickleball. But he recalls being told early on by experienced pickleball players that the pickleball backhand was a one-handed shot exclusively. Ignoring their advice, Fleming stuck with what he had been doing since he was five years old — hitting a twoey everywhere. Fleming used the twoey not only for serve returns, and at the baseline, but also to block, volley, and dink at the net. He was a unicorn, but that was going to change.

Another trailblazer on the men’s side was Riley Newman. Just five or six years ago, Newman was not a pro, but was developing his pickleball game. He employed a then-rare style that included looping topspin forehand drops and a topspin twoey everywhere. Newman, like Fleming, employed what he knew from tennis, and that included a twoey. Newman learned to dink with a twoey, causing him to hit a topspin twoey dink. Like Fleming, Newman was to use a shot that almost no one had ever done before. Newman brought that shot to the PPA Tour, and today it is much imitated.

Ben Johns’ use of the twoey is another interesting case in point. Ben was playing Nationals and other major tournaments pre-COVID in 2018 and 2019. But, the videos show he was exclusively using a one-hand backhand. Watch Ben today, and you will see him use a twoey from the baseline almost exclusively. He still dinks one-handed, but will occasionally go with a twoey at the kitchen, especially when hitting an ATP.

In today’s game, we see players like Connor Garnett, Rafa Hewett, and James Ignatowich using the twoey everywhere, on all shots. We also see players use the twoey selectively. For example, Collin Johns will block with a twoey, but not use it any other time. Tyler Loong will sometimes drive with a twoey, but does not use it otherwise. On the women’s side, the twoey predominates.  More than half the top pros use the twoey, especially for drives and volleys.

So what accounts for the rise of the twoey? Two-hand backhands have been around the tennis game for a long time, so it is odd that it would take so long for the twoey to break out in pickleball. Of course, one reason is likely the difference in size between a tennis racquet and a pickleball paddle. Paddle grips have lengthened over time, to accommodate players having two hands on the grip. Expect more paddle companies to offer long grips, as more amateurs change to a twoey.

Pickleball has become more of a power game as the years have passed. Compare a pickleball match today to one from 10 or even five years ago, and you will see a marked difference in the power of the game. Players hit harder today and hit hard more frequently. A twoey allows a player to not only hit harder, but also to counter power. Thus, the use of the twoey for groundstrokes and volleys is a natural evolution of the game.

More interesting is the use of the twoey in the dink game. Players like Newman, Ignatowich, and Bright use the twoey on all dinks, hitting with topspin. Up until five years ago, just about everyone was hitting cut backhand dinks. Now we see the frequent use of topspin backhand dinks. Hitting a topspin dink is easier with a twoey. As topspin becomes more prevalent, the twoey in the dink game should also become more prevalent.

Pickleball has been around awhile, but in many ways it is also still a young sport.  It is a sport where strategies are evolving and changing. Topspin and power predominate today’s game. The twoey is a natural reaction to those factors. Expect to see more and more players employ the twoey.

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