Best Tactics For Left-Handed Tennis Players
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.
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July 1st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I can offer no proof, but I think that we lefties have better backhands. I base this on forty years of recreational tennis, against hundreds of opponents. It has to do with what I think of as opposite-side coordination. Right-handers tend to be almost paralytically right handed, whereas left-handers tend to be ambiguous in their dexterity. I shoot a shotgun and a bow right-handed, and play pool right-handed. I have a brother-in-law who plays softball as a lefty, but golf as a righty. I will run around a forehand to hit a backhand. It feels far more natural, and I have better control of the shot.
Looking ahead to what I hope is a Nadal-Federer final at Wimbledon, I doubt that handedness will have much if anything to do with the outcome. Federer has a decent backhand, and Rafa can hit forehands pretty well. They’ll serve each other out wide, but that won’t decide the match, if it takes place.
When I think of elegant backhands, Rosewall and Ashe and Gasquet, all right-handers, come to mind. My observations, if they apply to anyone, apply to your next club opponent, not your next opponent on the WTA.
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:25 am
Thanks for sharing, Harry. But on your claim that “handedness will have much if anything to do with the outcome” I disagree.
Nadal would have won “maybe” 2 matches in his whole career against Federer if he was a right-hander.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:59 am
Tomaz: That’s an interesting claim, and I’d love to hear your reasoning. Yes, lefties have done well in professional tennis, relative to their numbers. (Left-handed pitchers and hitters have done even better.) But when I look at Rafa’s game, I see six or seven strengths that outrank his being left-handed, in terms of advantage against Federer or anyone else. I have a feeling that he could be the first clay specialist to, in music industry parlance, become a successful “crossover artist.” And I say all this as a huge Federer fan.
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Let me toss in one final thought about this lefty/righty thing, never to mention it again. Maybe we’re focusing on the wrong set of limbs. I’ve never heard anyone say, “I walk pretty well on my right leg, but not so well on my left.” We’re all bipedally ambidextrous. Or are we? My winter hobby is skate-skiing, and if you want to witness the directional paralysis of the right-handed population, come ski with me next winter. I’m strictly recreational level, but I ski the same on both sides. Skate right, pole right/ skate left, pole left. It would blow your mind to see how many otherwise good skiers can’t skate/pole left, and all of them are right-handed.
At the World Cup level, this isn’t an issue, since they’re all skiing what’s called V2 technique, meaning a double pole on every skate stroke. The sport hammered bipedal symmetry into their bones. I think that tennis similarly hammers bipedal symmetry into the bones of its professional players. You have to have a backhand, else find another occupation. And your backhand begins in the basement.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Good points, Harry. The tricky thing about left-handers is that their strength lies in their forehand that goes to the right-handers backhand which is typically weaker. The right-hander is used to defend with a cross-court shot back but now has to adapt somehow and look for a down-the-line “escape” from trouble (to lefty’s backhand).
This makes the right-hander make many conscious decisions instead of playing instinctively like he does with more than 90% of opponents (for the past 15 years). Because of this extra thinking and playing shots that he is not used to, the right-hander makes a lot of unforced errors or plays poor shots.
So the left-hander doesn’t exactly directly win points, it’s his indirect influence (just because he is a left-hander) that makes the right-hander play poorly.
The left-hander on the other hand plays 90% of matches against right-handers and is used to playing down-the-line backhands to backhands and so on. He knows MUCH better how to escape the problem of right-hander’s forehand to his weaker backhand. (because everyone attacks his backhand
)
If Federer can play instinctively against Nadal and can comfortably defend with his backhand cross-court to Nadal’s (imaginary) backhand, then Nadal is in BIG trouble. I’d still give him 2 wins on clay but not more…