Righties versus Lefties in Table Tennis

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Hi, all!
I just finished my new tool letting us know who are stronger: right-handed or left-handed players.
https://tabletennis.guide/versus.php?comparison=righties_vs_lefties&numplayers=300
The only thing i couldn't understand is why so many left-handed men play table tennis (almost 25% of top 300 by ITTF rankings). As far as i know only 15% of humanity are lefties. Does that mean that table tennis coaches prefer to select left-handed boys? Any other ideas?
 
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Selecting a player based on whether he or she is right-handed or left-handed is probably the worst way to choose a player to be coached. Just Imagine if when xu xin and Ma long were kids and if LGL had to select between the two, if he had avoided to coach ma long, it would have been the worst decision of his life.

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Does that mean that table tennis coaches prefer to select left-handed boys? Any other ideas?

Simply the best players make it to the top 300. It's not that coaches are seeking out lefties to coach in hopes they'll become a world class player someday.

It's different and something most players (righties & lefties themselves) are not use to. For that reason, lefties have some sort of advantage. That's why there is a slightly larger % in that top 300 vs the world population.

I'm left handed myself and even I'm a little thrown off when I play another lefty. All your set up points and tactics have to change a little.
 
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Hi, all!
I just finished my new tool letting us know who are stronger: right-handed or left-handed players.
https://tabletennis.guide/versus.php?comparison=righties_vs_lefties&numplayers=300
The only thing i couldn't understand is why so many left-handed men play table tennis (almost 25% of top 300 by ITTF rankings). As far as i know only 15% of humanity are lefties. Does that mean that table tennis coaches prefer to select left-handed boys? Any other ideas?


Oh that's a nice tool.

It's generally understood that lefties have a small advantage due to the change in tactics that is necessary. The fact that there are few lefties means that they are encountered less often and players might not be used to them. I'm a lefty myself and I find it very strange to play against a lefty.

For me, it's like talking to a girl as opposed to talking to a boy; it's like I'm a little unfamiliar with what to do
 

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Well, I'm a lefty and I've certainly upset some right-handed players in the last two or three years. Others meanwhile have no problem at all. One thing I have found though is that, at the lower levels, NO-ONE likes having a lefty as a doubles partner !!
 
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Well, I'm a lefty and I've certainly upset some right-handed players in the last two or three years. Others meanwhile have no problem at all. One thing I have found though is that, at the lower levels, NO-ONE likes having a lefty as a doubles partner !!

Hmm. As a lefty, I've found everyone I play with likes having a lefty as a doubles partner. The rotation is easier. Everybody gets to just hang out on their side and hit forehands.

That being said, I guess I do hate it when I play with a right handed backhand oriented player. Maybe they hate playing with me too in those cases.... SMH at players who have to receive service in doubles with their BH. Just doesn't sent up well for us with me being a penholder playing on someones left side. But those cases are few & far between.
 
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Imo it's just the simple fact that there are less left-handed players, which means especially in lower rankings they have a little advantage due to unfamiliarity. That can give them a tiny bit of an edge and if they have success early on, they will be more likely to keep on playing and get to a higher level. Maybe it's some sort of tiny snowball effect that pushes the statistics noticeably in one direction. One would have to explain the difference between men and women though.
 
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JHB

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Hmm. As a lefty, I've found everyone I play with likes having a lefty as a doubles partner. The rotation is easier. Everybody gets to just hang out on their side and hit forehands.

That being said, I guess I do hate it when I play with a right handed backhand oriented player. Maybe they hate playing with me too in those cases.... SMH at players who have to receive service in doubles with their BH. Just doesn't sent up well for us with me being a penholder playing on someones left side. But those cases are few & far between.

Hmm yes, well I did say at the lower levels ! The problem I get is mainly that the right-handers often don't appreciate that their lefty partner can't reach as far on his backhand side as another right-hander can on his forehand - so they continually serve balls which get battered back to their side of the table or wider (I'm talking here about players who think that sidespin is the work of the devil and short services are for wimps.) If I stand behind the server to alleviate this, everyone just stops and says "wtf are you doing ?" :rolleyes:
 
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Hmm. As a lefty, I've found everyone I play with likes having a lefty as a doubles partner. The rotation is easier. Everybody gets to just hang out on their side and hit forehands.

That being said, I guess I do hate it when I play with a right handed backhand oriented player. Maybe they hate playing with me too in those cases.... SMH at players who have to receive service in doubles with their BH. Just doesn't sent up well for us with me being a penholder playing on someones left side. But those cases are few & far between.
My looper friend in double forgot that I need some space behind me when chopping, Pavlovich style. He just stood there and receive the blade follow through between the leg.

The game stopped for 5 minutes, until Everyone stop laughing.

[emoji28] [emoji14]

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Hi, all!
I just finished my new tool letting us know who are stronger: right-handed or left-handed players.
https://tabletennis.guide/versus.php?comparison=righties_vs_lefties&numplayers=300
The only thing i couldn't understand is why so many left-handed men play table tennis (almost 25% of top 300 by ITTF rankings). As far as i know only 15% of humanity are lefties. Does that mean that table tennis coaches prefer to select left-handed boys? Any other ideas?

The reason why is that there is an advantage from being left handed that is similar to the advantage that you have by using pips etc. Once you practice against it sufficiently, it goes away, but it doesn't prevent the lefties from performing better at lower levels and it doesn't prevent them from performing better against people who get insufficient practice against them. The serves, strokes and spins come from different angles and have to be read and adjusted to differently. IF your instincts are to put the ball on your opponent's backhand, that is now your opponent's forehand if he is a lefty. At the highest level, they practice many hours against all styles and ball placements, but this does not mean that those that do not do not struggle against lefties. To me, the over representation is the advantage. Trying to put it in post-hoc statistics is similar to saying that because everyone that passed the exam is now in school, there is no advantage to being smart. Of course, everyone in school is smart, but to say it has no advantage is because you are ignoring all the people that did not make it into school.

I play the TTEdge app, and I consistently perform worse against the left handed side than the right handed side for all the opponents in the app. Is it because I am biased? Or just stupid? Let me know please.
 
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I am right handed and for a long time now I didn't even noticed if I am playing a lefty. I think if people think too much about if they have an advantage they WILL have an advantage.
Too be honest, in my first two years nearly always had lefty training partners, so never understand when someone complains about that.

There are differences tactics-wise, but a topspin is a topspin and if you can read it properly, doesn't matter where does it come from.
 
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I am right handed and for a long time now I didn't even noticed if I am playing a lefty. I think if people think too much about if they have an advantage they WILL have an advantage.
Too be honest, in my first two years nearly always had lefty training partners, so never understand when someone complains about that.

There are differences tactics-wise, but a topspin is a topspin and if you can read it properly, doesn't matter where does it come from.

Sometimes, we have to read what other people are writing to understand what the issue is.
 
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Can't adjust to a left handed player's ball? Must be because they're left handed! So unfair!

Can't adjust to a right handed player's ball? Must be their equipment! So unfair!

Can't beat players 200 points higher than you? "Well I'm supposed to lose to that guy, he's so good!"
 
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Sometimes, we have to read what other people are writing to understand what the issue is.

Yeah, but I haven't heard anything more concrete than 'I am not used to playing lefties', 'his/her shots are different'.
The best excuse so far was that the guy always pushed to a lefty's FH because he get used to pushing to righties BH and his balls get killed. I wanted to ask him what would happen against a righty with strong BH.

And just sayin' that I've never had a problem playing against righties too. (EDIT: I mean because of they were righties)
 
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Yeah, but I haven't heard anything more concrete than 'I am not used to playing lefties', 'his/her shots are different'.
The best excuse so far was that the guy always pushed to a lefty's FH because he get used to pushing to righties BH and his balls get killed. I wanted to ask him what would happen against a righty with strong BH.

And just sayin' that I've never had a problem playing against righties too. (EDIT: I mean because of they were righties)

I actually good to the USATT 2000 level in part becauss my backhand play was much stronger than my forehand play and playees often did not realize it until it was too late and wven if they did, they often lacked the ability to execute the patterns of play that would exploit the issue.

I think a lot of people are missing the point. Of course, if you practice mostly against pips, you will play pips better yhan someone who practices mostly against inverted. It is hardly any different with lefties. At the higher levels, the training hours and the higher number of lefties make things more level. At the lower levels, the fact that lefties are relatively rare makes it easier for them to take advantage of the difficulties players have in playing a mirror game.

Its not about talking, the stats above prove it. What is interesting is to see how those stats play out as you exit the highest level.

Its the quality of the analysis being brought to the subjectthat I find disappointing.
 
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From Larry Hodges blog:

Righties versus Lefties
Here’s an interesting interactive chartshowing that of the top 300 men and women in the world, 24.75% and 18.47% respectively are lefties, which are above the worldwide average for left-handedness which is about 10% (according to Wikipedia). Lefties obviously do have at least some advantage in table tennis as players aren’t as used to playing them, and so their natural tactical instincts are for playing righties.
 
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The question is when does that advantage show up? Probably long before the lefties become world class. The interesting test would be to compare won-loss records of LH vs RH players in randomly selected matches between people in, say top 200 in the world, and compare that to outcomes between players at, say, 1600 level.

[Savanasaraja and I] both suspect that early on lefties have an advantage, and so are over-represented among junior players that are good enough to get noticed and who then get access to intense training. So more become pros (relative to their prevalence in the population). However, somewhere along the line, when everybody's skill sets get high, whatever advantage they had as younger lower-level players disappears. But there are still more of them than population as a whole (because of the advantage they had early on, and hence the data NL presented in the last post).

This theory predicts pretty much 50-50 outcomes if you analyze enough LH vs. RH matches among pros, but a distinct statistically noticeable advantage to the LH players against their RH peers at 1600 level (especially interesting if you then break that 1600 group down into adults and cadets/juniors).

I say statistical because there are always other things at play, for example some people get to play lefties more often in practice.

It's just a theory but it makes some pretty strong predictions. One would need to be less lazy than I am to actually put it to the test, though.

Post edited to point that Savanasaraja had the same theory quite a bit earlier on the thread.
 
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