Seeking for advice RE: Left handed player tactics against right handed players

SilentRain said:

Currently i see alot of discussion RE right hand vs left but not the other way around so i could not obtain much info through online research.

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Why would the tactics be different? Get a mirror.
I am right handed now but I learned to play left handed because I broke my right wrist. That was back in the late 1960s.

If you do a search there is a thread on here somewhere with the same question. I haven’t got the time to search for it myself at the moment.
I’m a leftie and I googled the same question which lead me to a thread on here.
As mentioned don’t forget to check threads from righties who are struggling against lefties . You will find more of those and probably get a better insight into what is causing problems . It’s normally the same issues , short side spin pendulum serves to FH and long fast serves down the line to BH are two that spring to mind.

Hard question to answer We need much more.

I think a good tactic have these things

Play on your strengths. So trained this alot before match and how ro come to them. Otherwise it is more luck if you win.

Play on their weakness. Find this out by looking at their grip, warm up and how they play. Try differents shots and serves and see What they can and can not Do, What they Do good or bad.

Find patterns. Look how they play in the match. Often people return, serve and play the same why. In ex always return one of your serves one way. Find this out and you can be one step Ahead.

Try to find out if they ar bh or fh dominant. Fh dominant players you play in the corners, bh dominant in the pocket.

There are proably more than this But i am half asleep in my bed haha.

Good luck

I think it is always beneficial to invest in your service. Just from about three sessions developed a tomahawk that's now feared in my club. Also learn different serves, and to vary placement, spin, speed, so your opponent will still struggle in the third set. Or you can still pull out a new surprise serve. (From Larry Hodges I picked up the hint of serving a no spin to the middle of the body in a crucial situation/ end of a set. Often you get a weak return to attack)

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There are certain things that are easy to figure out. The first thing I would say is, if you are not good at long rallies, it is great to play with those players who force you into more long rallies. They will help you improve.

The second thing to understand, whether a righty serving to a lefty or a lefty serving to a righty, there are some simply big advantages. Your regular pendulum serve can be easily placed to the opponent's wide FH whether short or long. The angle and the spin make it so you can sit on the BH side and wait for the return. The angle without the spin of a pendulum still forces the opponent to hit from that angle. Which means, if they try to go wide to your FH, it is still angling towards the BH and the footwork to the ball is easy. With the spin of the pendulum, whether top or backspin, the sidespin of the pendulum pulls the ball towards your BH side which makes it less likely that the opponent will be able to give you an angle that gives you a challenge.

So, to repeat, a lefty pendulum to the righty wide FH, short or long, and sitting waiting on the BH corner for the ball to come back, will give you control of the table while the opponent is out of position.

When that tactic is used against you, one response I have been told that is helpful is to make your return slow enough so you can get back into position to counter the 3rd ball. But when you are using this tactic, regardless of the opponent's skill in handling the tactic, it gives you an open table and control that the return of serve has to come towards where you are waiting. Even if the opponent is skilled at going around the net on this, the ball will be easy to move to and will still be coming towards where you set up in your ready position.

If the opponent is trying to hurry back to cover their BH corner in the event that you go down the line with your third ball, the wide FH will be open. If the opponent does not move back to cover the table down the line to their BH will be open. And in either event, blasting the third ball right at their switching point as they are questioning whether to stay put or get back to center to cover the BH side, you kind of have them out of position while you have control of the table.

Effective use of this tactic also leaves your opponent open to a down the line serve to the BH side as they start to cheat over to the FH side in order to cover the FH corner.

Carl has explained in much better detail and skill what i mentioned in my earlier post.

As a LH player, I'd recommend to practice with some decent LH players, especially on serving and returning serve. Once you know how to return serve (or serve) effectively then everything after that is just normal playing.

starsky27 said:

Carl has explained in much better detail and skill what i mentioned in my earlier post.

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Yep. And it appears Matt posted a version of this way back in 2011 from the thread in your link as well.

Matt Hetherington said:

I'm left handed and I enjoy using the advantage of being able to break the table with wide angles which right handers hate. A tactic I use in tight situations is a long sidespin fast serve which breaks the table, a right hander follows it out to attack on their forehand but very seldom attack down the line so they will generally loop back to my backhand corner, I pivot and loop early in the bounce down the line to the huge gap in the table!

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