What is the best game tactics a lefty could use to raise his game to full potential?

Do left-handers have an advantage in tennis?

Yes, and the main reason is that in most cases player’s forehands are better than backhands and this makes a left-hander’s forehand go cross court to your weaker backhand.

And because of court coverage and higher percentage shots everyone needs to play a lot cross court; so the forehand – backhand duel is inevitable.

You might think that it’s the same for the right-hander since their forehand goes to lefty’s backhand and that’s true, except the right-hander doesn’t practice this very often.

There are approximately 8-15% left-handers so the right-hander may practice their “forehand against backhand” tactics in about 15% of the matches, while a left-hander practices this in 85% of the matches.

So in general, the left-hander finds it easier to control the point with their forehand than a right-hander.

The other advantage is that the left-hander serves out wide to right-hander’s backhand on crucial points like 40:30, 30:40.

And since left-handers play at lot of right-handers, they keep serving their wide serves time and time again and become very good at them.

Right-handers on the other hand play mostly right-handers and don’t serve many wide serves out to opponent’s forehand.

So when they play a left-hander they are not that good with a wide slice serve.

Your main goal as a left-hander is to try and gain advantage in the point with your wide serve and occasionally surprise your opponent with a serve to their forehand.

There is a whole chapter in the Tennis Strategy Encyclopedia on how to deal with left-handers and that might help you discover new tactics that you never considered before.

How could I win against players who are higher in ranking or have better play?

When I ask some coaches they say that those players are more experienced than me but if I keep gaining experience and they do then they will win forever, won’t they?

It’s hard to beat players better than you, well, because they are better than you.

There are 4 major areas where players can be better than you:

1. Better technique which gives them better control of the ball and more effective and economical strokes

2. Better physical abilities – faster, stronger, better stamina, better coordination, better reactions, …

3. Better mental skills – able to keep concentration longer, able to ignore distractions, bale to cope with pressure, …

4. Better strategy and ability to play it – identifying your weaknesses and strengths and adjusting their game to be the most effective against you

The experience you mention is mostly mental and strategy part of tennis.

Although everyone becomes more and more experienced in time, not everyone improves at the same RATE.

Winning a match against a player is combination of all the above skills and of course sports luck and unpredictability.

Safin can score some unpredictable points against Federer but not enough in the long term to win.

Here is one more article on how to beat an experienced player.

I highly appreciated reading your ebooks. Great work!

I have a question for you: Untill recently I hit a lot of double faults every match.

Since I’ve started serving with courage this has improved a lot.

However, I find that some players tend to jump up and down or make sudden movements when I look up during the serve to distract me and this works very well on me.

As a result I start double faulting again. I don’t know what to do in this situation because I can’t not notice it.

Do you have any tips? (more…)

This the third part of the tennis lessons series that I build on Squidoo.

The serve lesson shows you how to find the continental grip, how to start learning from the first lesson (hint – it’s about your stance) and how to coordinate both arms.

I also suggest the serve in 2 parts for easier progression.

Take a look at the tennis lessons page on Squidoo and give it your rating.

You can only rate a lens if you are a Squidoo member. If you are not, sign up and create your lens, anyone can do it for free.

HI! Your book is great and you have amazing tips!! Thank you so much for writing it and for sharing w/the rest of us your vast knowledge!!! You are awesome.

I have a question about mixed doubles. I am 32 and I am a very consistent player (or I was and most of the time that is what my team members always say about me and playing w/me) but I don’t have a hard shot and the greatest technique.

I guess that my “technique” had just been to get the ball back no matter what, and keep it in play. (more…)

If you are actually planning to go to Wimbledon and check out London at the same time, I found a great website.

This website is an insider’s guide to the exciting city of London.

You can find cheap hotels, attractions, romantic places , restaurants, night places and there is of course a page about Wimbledon too.

If you are not going this year, you can still bookmark the site and check it out next year.

For more information about [tag]London[/tag] and Wimbledon check the London Tourist Travel Guide.

Hi Tomaz! I just ordered your videos today.

I have one question for you: do you lift or swing your racquet to the contact point?

Many thanks!

If I understand you correctly, then I would say that I swing to the contact point.

You would need to lift the racquet to the contact point if you started the forward swing below the ball.

The problem with that is that the racquet has no speed when it starts to move upwards. You start from zero speed.

But when you prepare with the racquet head up, then you just let go and the gravity pulls the racquet down and eventually it has to go up because that’s natural for your arm.

It will swing upwards.

Note that the feeling of moving racquet forward is similar to pulling since you initiate this movement with your legy, hips and whole body and you arm is the last segment of this kinetic chain.

The matches at Wimbledon 2007 are finally under way and we’ve already seen 2 very interesting matches where players failed to convert on match points.

©Getty Images/ J. Finney

First, Naomi Cavaday, ranked #223, failed to convert 2 match points against Martina Hingis and eventually lost 6-7, 7-5, 6-0.

And second, Tim Henman had four match points at 5:4 in the fifth set against Carlos Moya and didn’t convert them. The match was suspended at 5:5 because of the low visibility.

Why does this happen?

How come players fight all the way to the [tag]match point[/tag] and then somehow are unable to win that last point?

The most common reason is that they start thinking too much. (more…)

I am looking for some tips on how to make someone excited and motivated about practice again once they start to lose it or already lost it?

I know sometimes it is needed to have some break. But beside that, what else can be done to motivate someone again?

Create more matches? Find new challenges, new players to play against, new drills, or maybe even new coaches? (more…)

I recently had a very interesting tennis lesson with a 10-year-old girl.

She never played tennis before and it’s been quite a while since I taught someone with no previous experience with tennis.

She was an extremely good learner and learned lots of technique and footwork in her first tennis lesson which lasted 2 hours.

I thought it would be interesting to document what she learned in 2 hours and how a coach needs to adapt to the player’s learning abilities.

For a full article go to “What a 10-Year-Old Tennis Beginner Learned in 2 Hours”.