Tactics to get easy points as a left handed player

This user has no status.
This user has no status.
Active Member
Aug 2016
869
1,202
2,883
Well setup points is largely something you discover on your own or should test out on your own because you might handle certain types of spin better or worse than others. So it's a personal preference thing. You should go experiment.

That being said, as a lefty penholder, I'll give you a couple of mine.

Setup 1: The Poor man's Hezhiwen. (Note: this is when facing a righty)
Serving FH from your back corner. Give them pendulum serve, either side, or side/back, or side/top wide curving off the table away from them. The ball should really break wide. Unless the player is standing more middle of the table prior to the receive, they will have to reach to get this ball and you simply block or attack their weak shot cross court. Just youtube "the best of hezhiwen" and you'll see what I mean.

You should also have a good down the line serve with variation as a change up if they're cheating over too much on serve.

Setup 2: My personal favorite and number 1 go to play right now. Courtesy of NL giving me this one.
It's real simple and that's what I like about it.
Serving FH from your back corner. Serve down the to their backhand heavy backspin. The serve should really be loaded. On this serve I don't even try to hide what I'm doing all that much. I'm just focusing on making it as heavy as possible. If they feel comfortable looping heavy backspin with their backhand and can get it in consistently, congratulations. You're playing a quality player and get ready to buckle up. Or you can try the serve short. But in my experience, most players under 2000 (and even some 2000 ones) will push this ball. This is why I like to serve it long. It's hard to push or chop that service receive and keep it not go long off the table. Once it does, you FH loop that backspin ball (must have a good FH loop to do this) no questions asked. Generally with your powerful loop and their backspin, you'd be amazed how much of a hard time players have keeping this ball on the table. From there just mixed in the occasional dead ball serve that looks like your backspin and you'll get a few pushes long off the table here & there if you're luckly.

The beauty of this setup is that it's all about getting a predictable return. You only have to get good at 1 type of spin in this setup. Good vs looping backspin. To me it simplifies the game sometimes vs having 20 different type of serves & spins where you get 20 different type of spins in return. Just my 2 cents.

I'm sure others will have some tips but those are the two I'm primarily enjoying right now.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Ioiettino
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
Active Member
Oct 2012
891
510
1,733
Read 1 reviews
Basically TT players must have a lot of different types of serve, and each one will apply in certain scenario depends on how the opponents return it.

I like to do short/heavy/serve side spin from BH corner to his FH, then either attack quickly and strongly with forehand or soft BH flip for variation. Rarely the RH opponent can attack a lefty short/heavy/side spin serve to his FH so most of the time he will push. The FH attack can end the point but the soft BH flip can give opponent a weird side spin swerves to his right. Then change spin to heavy or dead, long, half long, position, etc. accordingly if you feel he comfortably returns certain serve....
 
This user has no status.
This user has no status.
Member
Apr 2017
72
35
111
Hi all ,
First post here. I’ve been lurking in the background for a while.
In regards to third ball tactics for a lefty ( I’m one) v a righty. It’s something I’ve been working on a lot recently. As suds79 said keeping it simple has really worked for me. I used to use all different types of serves before but this was harder to get a predictable return for a good third ball. I now serve mainly short backspin which at my level gets a long push return. This has enabled me to concentrate on topspining any return .
Apart from that excellent advice previously I use a short pendulum seve with sidespin/backspin/no spin down the middle breaking to the opponents FH. This normally gets a return to the middle or sometimes the BH where you can third ball with your FH by stepping around if need be. I also use this serve but more to the opponents FH side which normally gets a return to my BH due to the angle which I then use a quick BH to the body as they are normally jammed up over the table.
A similar serve but on the other side would be a short back spin/sidespin down the line which gets a return to the wide FH you can then attack with a FH loop crosscourt into the body. I especially like to execute that one with some sidespin.

I also mix those short serves up with some fast long backspin/ topspin to the body as a surprise tactic.

Cheers,
 
Last edited:
Top