149-year Grand Slam one-handed backhand streak ends

Ben Shelton's victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas in the US Open's round of 16 on Sunday, September 6, 2026, has concluded a 149-year streak in men's tennis. Since the inaugural Wimbledon tournament in 1877, at least one player utilizing a one-handed backhand had consistently reached the semifinals of a Grand Slam event each year. That unbroken lineage ended in New York with Tsitsipas's straight-sets defeat. The elegant one-handed backhand, once a staple of the sport, has steadily been supplanted by the two-handed stroke in the modern power game. Legends such as Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka were among the most recent standard-bearers of the shot, following in the footsteps of icons like John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl, Pete Sampras, Stefan Edberg, and Gustavo Kuerten. Shelton, who also defeated Denis Shapovalov, another practitioner of the one-handed backhand, in the third round, now advances in the tournament without a player using the stroke remaining in the men's singles draw. Stefanos Tsitsipas expressed his disappointment at the decline of the shot, lamenting the loss of a "traditional, classic shot.