However, certain basic tactics can help make lefties easier to play against. For instance, if your opponent serves wide, try moving in on their return serve and moving closer – this will reduce angles while simultaneously decreasing how much space they need to cover for their backhand.
Recent laboratory research indicates that practicing with left-handed opponents improves players’ visual anticipation of left-oriented actions, compensating for reduced frequency of left-hander opponents in professional tennis [1]. Unfortunately, however, this advantage appears diminished at an amateur level [2.].
1. Adapting Your Stroke
Professional athletes spend thousands of hours training and competing to develop and sustain excellence throughout their careers. One would expect that constant confrontation with right-handed opponents would reinforce a negative frequency-dependent advantage of left-handers in individual sports such as tennis where performance solely rests upon two individuals fighting head to head against one another.
No matter their advantages, many players find playing against lefties challenging due to an unfamiliarity factor. To explore whether unfamiliarity was indeed the main contributory factor behind why left-handers have an adverse performance disadvantage against right-handed opponents, we tracked player frequencies over time in men’s and women’s year-end world rankings and Grand Slam tournaments (Figure 1). Three out of 16 of men’s top-16 players in men’s tennis were left-handed while only two did in women’s. Over time left-handedness among professional tennis pros initially increased before it linearly decreased over time (Figure 2).
When facing off against a left-handed opponent, it is key to remain aware of where their strong sides are on the court and play accordingly. For instance, right-handed players pushing into their opponent’s backhand side create vulnerability as this pulls them away from their strongest side (ie: forehand corner). A better approach might be dropping short to their forehand or middle for maximum effectiveness.
Lefties excel at serving, using their ability to devise creative serves with reverse conventional spin to set points up early – leaving opponents unprepared and vulnerable. If you’re not careful, lefties could catch you off guard with their service skills!
Haynes advises her players to watch how an opponent serves and focus on getting back into play more quickly by moving their feet. To manage this issue, Haynes stresses the mental aspect of the game by assuring her athletes know things may not always go their way, both on and off the court, so they need to focus on controlling what they can – such as fast footwork drills in high pressure environments and mastering fast footwork drills themselves.
2. Adapting Your Stance
A player’s stance refers to how they position their feet and load their body weight before hitting a tennis ball. There are various tennis stances available depending on what kind of shot is being hit; more attacking stances tend to hit more powerfully, exerting more pressure on an opponent. Javi provides advice for properly structuring footwork in each of three main attacking stances: close, semi-open, and open.
Right-handed players who face off against lefties must adapt their patterns and strategies to account for the unique spins and angles produced by lefties, yet some of the top players in the game have found ways to meet this challenge successfully. One such player, Jan-Lennard Struff, finds it helpful to regularly find lefty practice partners to prepare himself for matches against them; doing this helps him familiarize himself with tactics his opponents might employ and increase their ability to predict their shots.
Ashleigh Barty finds it helpful to spend some practice time playing against and with left-handed opponents, becoming familiar with all of their spins and angles that they might use during matches. Furthermore, this enables her to develop more efficient tactical approaches when facing them off against one.
Right-handed players who face lefty opponents should serve more often on the deuce side, which will force the left-hander to use backhand slices from his/her forehand, creating more opportunities for winners or break point chances for the right-handed opponent.
Below is an illustration of the relative frequency of left-handed players in men’s and ladies’ top 10 rankings, where significantly more lefties appear in men’s than female. This may be attributable to gender-related disparities or greater competition in male sports versus female ones.
3. Adapting Your Serve
Though right-handed players dominate both men’s and top 10 women’s tennis, lefties do exist at high levels. Rafael Nadal leads an international movement of lefties who enjoy an edge in competition; other prominent left-handers such as Fernando Verdasco, Michael Llodra Feliciano Lopez Adrian Mannarino and Bob Bryan are ranked as world class lefties who hold high positions within their sport.
As such, there are strategies available to you when playing against left-handed opponents that can help increase the chances of success in tennis matches against them. These may include hitting crosscourt to their forehand and using plenty of topspin so the ball bounces over their backhand and is difficult to defend; or serving to their backhand and drawing them into court so there will be increased likelihood for mistakes when trying to defend returns.
Altering your serve is another key strategy against left-handed opponents, as it keeps them guessing while also exposing weaknesses in their game. Try switching up your serve from time to time; for instance if you typically hit flat serves try throwing in slices or kick serves from time to time for maximum impact!
At any level of tennis, understanding how to play against left-handed opponents is invaluable. Professional players often seek out left-handed hitch partners prior to tournaments to help prepare and gain experience playing against this type of opponent. While this might not be feasible for club players, watching how professionals play and using some of these strategies against a left-handed friend or opponent is still helpful and will give you an advantage next time when facing one off!
4. Adapting Your Game
Even though right-handed players dominate at the highest level of tennis, lefties do find success at this level as evidenced by Martina Navratilova, Monica Seles and John McEnroe being successful lefties themselves. Even these champions acknowledge the difficulty associated with competing against fellow left-handers like themselves.
This could be because elite tennis professionals frequently face off against right-handed opponents, which could reinforce any frequency-dependent advantages for left-handedness in professional tennis (Holtzen 2000).
As a result, over time the probability of reaching a high year-end world ranking position as a left-handed male professional decreases relative to its probability for right-handed pros, a trend even more apparent for female professionals. Left-hander frequencies among year-end top 10 players decreased linearly over time in both genders (Fig 1).
So it is clear: in order to overcome the frequency-dependent disadvantage of being left-handed, players need to tailor their strategy according to each opponent they encounter. Thanks to advancements in match preparation, elite performers and coaches should have no difficulty learning more about their upcoming rivals and adapting their game-play strategies accordingly.
One way of doing this is to leverage the natural tendency of left-handed players to hit crosscourt, heavy topspin forehands against their opponent’s backhand side – taking advantage of right-handed player’s relative lack of experience returning these shots on their ad side.
On break points, another strategy to employ is serving wide from the ad side – this will force right-handed players to return it with their forehand – their often weaker shot.
Left-handed players can also create problems for their opponents by attacking down the line with heavy backhand slices, which can disorient an opponent and force errors from them. This tactic works particularly well when returned by an ad court player with their forehand, leading the ball back onto their ad-side backhand and giving them an opportunity to win points themselves; effectively disrupting their rhythm and thus controlling the match through disruption of rhythm of their rival.