By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
You never know where and when you are going to learn a new bit of tennis knowledge or bit of history.
While playing some friendly morning mixed doubles while at the beautiful Moorings Club in Vero Beach, Florida, I attempted to hit a “tweener” while retrieving a lob over my head. I missed it for a second day in a row – hitting the ball into the net (I had a made my last few attempts earlier in the year – thankfully without any injuries across the board!)
My partner, Lynette, said to me “Oh. You tried a Bucharest Backfire.”
This was the first time I’ve heard of this term. Roger Federer is the signature striker of this shot and “tweener” is the name it was given – by someone, although I’m not who. Before Federer, it was Frenchman Yannick Noah who I remember gave this shot some fame when he hit it in a U.S. Open match with Aaron Krickstein. Gabriela Sabatini turned the trick once as well in the 1980s, and it was called “The Saba-tweeny.” Guillermo Vilas was the first documented player to hit the shot in a pro tennis match, a shot the South Americans called the “Gran Willy.”
But what is a Bucharest Backfire?
I had a hunch it had to due to Ilie Nastaste, who was an incredible shotmaker and from Bucharest, Romania. Lynette told me as such, saying how much she loved to watch him play back in the day.
After our match, while socializing and rehydrating, I googled “Bucharest Backfire” from my Iphone to learn the origins of this term. To little surprise, the term was coined by the one and only Bud Collins, the Hall of Fame journalist and personality. However, I learned that it was actually a over-the-shoulder wrist flick shot, rather than a tweener.
During my google search, I found an instructional here on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy7MDM3NTR4. There was no video that I could find of Nastase hitting this shot, but I do have some memory of seeing video of him hitting it. The most famous execution of this shot, to most people, was by Andre Agassi from a 1995 U.S. Open night match against Alex Corretja, as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbNFf09E3qE
I wanted to know a bit more about Nastase and this shot so I soon called Cliff Richey, the former U.S. No. 1 player and contemporary of Nastase, who’s book “Acing Depression: A Tennis Champion’s Toughest Match” I published.
“I remember him hitting a lot of winners with that shot, but never against me,” said Richey before describing an incredible, but agonizing, hyper-angled inches-from-the-ground swinging top-spin forehand volley winner Nastase hit against him to save match point en route to beating him in the 1970 U.S. National Indoor Final in Salisbury, Md.
In his book “The Bud Collins History of Tennis” (soon to be updated and re-issued in December of this year, pre-order here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1937559386/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_JWPPvb0Z11XTP) Collins writes of Nastase “No player has been more gifted or mystifying than the Bucharest Buffon, Ilie Nastase, noted for his sorcery with the racket and his bizarre objectionable behavior.”
So the Burcharest Backfire is now part of my vernacular. We will have to wait and see if it becomes a part of my tennis shot repertoire.
