One of my long time subscribers, Verge, read my article on "pop the cap" on the forehand and suggested that based on his experience, the same was true on the two handed backhand. He is absolutely correct. You have to "pop the cap" on both the one handed and two handed backhands to get that burst of racket head speed into contact.

Let's start with this clip I took of Milos Raonic which illustrates "pop the cap" beautifully.

In the top animation, watch how the tip of his racket starts higher than the butt cap and is slightly to the left ("outside") while the butt cap is pointing towards his right thigh ("inside"). His next move is to completely reverse this position by relaxing and dropping his hands and wrists and "popping" the cap. The hands and wrists coil downwards and flex backwards at the end with the racket head being well below the butt cap. And the butt cap has gone from "inside" to "outside" due to the flexing backwards and downwards of the wrists (and the tip of the racket head).

In the bottom animation, I wanted to show what the fully "popped" position looks like from the back view.

Notice how as Raonic drops his wrists, he "pops the cap" so that the tip of the racket flexes backwards, almost touching his left knee, while the butt cap "pops" outward, pointing toward the left net post.

This is a fantastic reference point when learning or teaching the professional two handed backhand. The wrists start in a relaxed neutral position with no layback. Then as the ball approaches, let gravity do the work by letting the wrists fall downwards, while flexing the wrist (and tip of the racket) backwards towards the leg with the butt cap pointing towards the left net post.

After popping the cap there is a very short, but quick, pull phase, before the racket head acclerates quickly "inside out" into contact.

That is coming up next. Stay tuned.