Kiama Tennis Club is home to a community of enthusiastic people with a love for tennis from all ages and skill levels. The club has around 480 members making it the largest tennis club on the South Coast. They are dedicated to hosting an array of social events at various times in the week and there’s something for everyone.  

On Sundays from 2pm and sometimes earlier, all members are welcome for social tennis. With a casual atmosphere and the ‘famous Kiama tennis banter’ on the courts. Mixed, ladies, and gents have meetings at various times throughout the week as well.

You can access more details on the social meetings here.

One such member of Kiama Tennis Club is David Graham who is passionate about the sport and getting the community involved. David remarked on an interesting pattern that emerged in the latest ITF Men’s Tennis Rankings. 

All of the top 10 players use a double-handed backhand. Last week, Greek star Stefanos Tsitsipas dropped out of the top 10 to 11th in the world. Here are the current top 10 players all utilising a double-handed backhand: 

1. Novak Dlokovic, 
2. Carlos Alcaraz, 
3. Jannik Sinner, 
4. Daniil Medvedev, 
5. Andrey Rublev, 
6. Alexander Zverev, 
7. Holger Rune, 
8. Hubert Hurkacz, 
9. Alex de Minaur and 
10. Taylor Fritz.

This is the first time this phenomenon has occurred. KTC has only one player who utilises the double-hand technique, which is very interesting to consider. 

In the golden era of tennis in the 1950s and 1960s legends of the game included Ken Rosewall, Lew Hoad, Pancho Gonzales, John Newcombe, Pat Cash, Arthur Ashe and Boris Becker, to name a few. All these players possess a single-handed backhand. This was the way that coaches taught the backhand in that era.

Then, Jan Lehane arrived in the women’s ranks. From Grenfell in Central West NSW, her father was a farmer and keen tennis player with heavy weighted racquets. Young Jan, who was keen to learn tennis and follow in her father's footsteps picked up the racquet and started to hit against a brick wall on the farm. She was strong enough on the forehand but couldn’t hit a backhand without holding the racquet with both hands, there was no light junior racquet in the 1950’s. As a junior, Jan was invincible defeating, Margaret Smith from Albury in all the junior finals around Australia, she was the first double-handed player to compete at Wimbledon.

Then came Chris Evert, a double-hander who won 18 Grand Slam singles titles in her bag of 157 total titles overall. In the men’s ITF we cannot forget Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe who all play with double-handed backhands.

Local tennis coaches tend to prefer younger players to use both hands on the backhand as it seems natural. Children seem to have quicker success.