Photo Lesson: The Basic Two-Handed Backhand

One video frame (1/30 second) before contact, the center of the racquet's string bed is still roughly eight inches below the ball. Having the racquet head lower than the hands at this point helps get it below the ball, which is near the lower limit of comfort for a two-handed stroke. Two-handed backhands have a higher range of comfortable points of contact than do one-handed backhands. As long as the racquet's long axis comes back to nearly horizontal at the point of contact, the dropped racquet head at this stage will help the stroke by giving the racquet more distance to rise as it meets the ball. The more upwardly the racquet face is moving at contact, the more topspin the stroke will produce.

If the ball were higher, the dropped racquet head you see here would be less necessary, and for any ball height, you should avoid dropping the racquet head much more than seen here, because it could result in your "golfing" the ball, which would tend to make you hit long.