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Novak Djokovic, at the Open on Friday, said he looked for “every opportunity” to use the inside-out forehand.Credit Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

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Hit to your opponent’s backhand. For generations, that was considered the most foolproof tactic in tennis.

It is not anymore — and not just because backhands have improved so much. Especially on the men’s tour, players simply run around shots to their backhand, even into the doubles alley, to blast an inside-out forehand back with tremendous pace at a seemingly impossible angle.

“The inside-out forehand is one of the most important shots in the game,” Novak Djokovic said. “I look for every opportunity to do it.”

Roger Federer said: “If you ask guys what their favorite shot is, a lot would say the inside-out forehand.”

There have always been players who tried to get around shots to their backhand, said Brad Gilbert, a former player and coach. Through the 1970s, he said, it was a sign of weakness — a player trying to avoid hitting a flimsy return. But inside-out forehands have become an act of aggression.

“Players today have great backhands, but they go alley to alley hitting the forehand,” Gilbert said. “The inside-out forehand has evolved into the most devastating shot in the game.”

Beginning in the 1980s, Spanish and South American players who came up on clay courts used the extra time that the slower surface provides to move around shots to the backhand.

Steve Flink, a veteran columnist for Tennis Channel, said “the single most important player” in changing the perception of the inside-out shot was Ivan Lendl, although he hit it much flatter than today’s players do.

“Connors, McEnroe and Borg didn’t play that way, and it became his trademark,” Flink said. “It was so influential.”

But it was the students of Nick Bollettieri, including Jimmy Arias, Aaron Krickstein and especially Jim Courier who were the main progenitors of the modern shot, which can be used to attack on all surfaces.

“Courier’s was the most devastating,” said Justin Gimelstob, a former pro who now coaches John Isner. “Courier started destroying guys with the inside-out forehand.”

The revolution was born out of pragmatism. Arias’s father insisted that his son’s one-handed backhand not be changed, Bollettieri said, so he decided to work around it.

“Nick said, ‘Your backhand kind of stinks, and your forehand is awesome,’ ” Arias said. “I wasn’t aware I was different. It was just how I won points. Then Nick started teaching everybody that shot.”

Bollettieri said Courier’s mother also wrote a letter about not tinkering with her son’s backhand, so he decided, “To hell with the backhand, let’s hit all forehands.”

“It was about the individual cases, but it was also smart tactically, especially with the changes in the game that followed,” Bollettieri added.

The shot is not easy. The spacing between the ball and the body is crucial and the most challenging part to master.

“You have to have tremendous movement and early racket preparation,” Bollettieri said. “You have to know you want it immediately and start moving. And you’re leaving the whole area open on your forehand side, so you have to be very careful, or you are dead meat.”

The slowing of the grass and hardcourt surfaces, and of the balls themselves, was a major factor in encouraging players to go for the shot more, especially, Flink said, as serve and volley declined and another mode of attack was needed.

But Arias wondered if the inside-out forehand had become too popular.

“I don’t understand why they run around so much,” he said. “If my backhand was as good as today’s players, then why give up that much court and get out of position?”

Gimelstob countered that backhands could never match these extra forehands.

“As great as the backhands have become, it is tough to generate that much pace,” he said. “The threat of this shot shrinks the court, and you feel like you have to hit into the corners.”

Andy Murray said the shot’s open stance enabled players to “disguise the shot a lot more than the backhand, so it’s harder to defend against.”

2015 U.S. Open

Tracy Austin, a former United States Open champion, said the tactic had made the middle of the court “a danger zone.”

“That fear to be more precise puts pressure on players, and that’s what tennis is,” she added.

Murray said that the best way to defend against the shot was with a strong backhand down the line, a strategy used particularly well by Djokovic, Kei Nishikori and Stan Wawrinka.

“The inside-out forehand used to be the most important shot, but now the backhand down the line is as important,” Murray said.

The inside-out forehand is not the only weapon available when running around shots to the backhand, said Jack Sock, who may hit a higher percentage of forehands than anyone else on tour.

Players often hit “inside-in” forehands, meaning they hit the forehand down the line, typically to their opponent’s forehand. Sock said that it was the equivalent of a baseball pitcher throwing a changeup to prevent a batter from sitting on the fastball and that it often made opponents run even farther on the next inside-out shot.

The more extreme versions of the inside-out forehand are less prevalent on the women’s tour, Austin said, because there is not as much power in the game, “and if you hit a weaker shot and you have left your forehand side open, you are in big trouble.”

Eugenie Bouchard said she found a tactical edge in not taking the time to run around to her forehand.

“I prefer to step in and take the ball earlier and get it back faster with my backhand,” she said.

But there is a certain someone looming at the top of the women’s game, and the only way to beat her might be with the inside-out forehand.

“It’s very important against Serena because you can use this shot to make her run,” said Simona Halep, who lost to Williams in the final in the Cincinnati event before the U.S. Open. “I was not aggressive enough with it in Cincinnati, but next time, I will be more aggressive.”