The slice is a defensive shot only if you hit it badly

Underspin has been coached out of a generation because it looks passive, and it remains the cleanest way to break a rally's rhythm.

Somewhere in the last twenty years the backhand slice became a shot you apologise for. Junior coaching treats it as what you hit when you cannot get round the ball in time. That framing is wrong and it has cost a lot of players a tactical option they would enjoy having.

The mechanics are worth taking seriously. Underspin makes the ball hold its line and stay low after the bounce, because the rotation works against the direction of travel and the ball skids rather than jumping up. Low is the problem. An opponent generating topspin needs to swing from below the ball to above it, and a ball that arrives at knee height gives them very little room to do that in. They have to bend, take the racket lower, and hit up sharply, which either produces a short ball or a floating one.

That is not defence. That is a shot which forces a specific and difficult response.

The rhythm argument is the stronger one. A rally between two topspin players settles into a pace and a bounce height and both players get comfortable. Insert one slice and the timing changes, the contact point drops, the footwork pattern that was working stops working. Players who never face slice in practice are demonstrably uncomfortable against it, which is an argument for hitting more of it and, honestly, an argument about how practice is organised.

It is a court position shot too. A deep slice buys you time to recover, which is the defensive use everyone knows, and a short low slice pulls an opponent forward into a place many baseline players genuinely do not want to be. Watch how many tall players approach a low short ball badly. It is not a coincidence. They have not been there often.

The objection is fair enough: a poorly hit slice sits up, floats and gets murdered. Absolutely true. The shot has a narrow margin because the whole value comes from keeping it low, and a slice that bounces above the waist is a gift to a hitter. That is a reason to practise it, not to abandon it.

What frustrates me is the circular logic. Nobody practises it, so everyone hits it badly, so it looks like a bad shot, so nobody practises it.

Meanwhile every player who has one wins points nobody else can.