Posts Tagged ‘tennis tip’
Tennis Tips: How To Beat a “Left-Hander”
It’s always a shock the first time you play a left-handed player. Your favorite shots that normally go deep to your opponent’s back-hand suddenly coming flying past you for winners. What’s more, that shot to your opponent’s back-hand at the net which has been your big earner is suddenly dispatched with no problem at all. Then suddenly you realize that you are playing a leftie! Those shots are being returned so well because you are playing to their forehand, which is usually (but not always) the strongest sides for most tennis players. Now, in the middle of the match, you are forced to change all your favorite shots as you try and “reverse” everything to play to their back-hand. For example, rather than playing your back-hand cross-court to play to your opponent’s back-hand as you would do for a right-hander, now you have to play down the line to go to the “leftie’s” back-hand. That’s not a shot you want to try in a competitive game when you are not used to it. Unless you play it deep and close to the side-line, it will be quite an easy back-hand return for your opponent.
So what should you do? Well, playing a left-hander in a competitive match is not the best way to learn new strategies. Here are a few tennis tips to help you. The best approach is to practice beforehand with a left-hander so that you can try out all your different shots to see what works and what doesn’t. The next time you play a ‘leftie’, get their phone number and arrange to play some practice matches with them. Always try to have at least one left-handed player in your arsenal of people that you practice with on a regular basis. You can now try your back-hand shots deep down the side-line and your cross-court forehands to pressure their back-hands just as you would normally do for a “rightie”. If you can do it, a very effective technique is to try a very heavy sliced serve out wide to the leftie’s backhand.
Just a word of caution here. Since a lot of left-handers are used to playing right-handers, they may be very familiar with right-handers trying to pressurize their back-hand and may have developed a formidable back-hand to deal with this. So watch out. Sometimes just reversing all your usual “right-hander” shots may not be an effective strategy. If this is the case, try the forehand, bringing them to the net or deep shots until you have discovered a chink in their armor. Mixing up your shots is a very effective strategy against any tennis player to discover their strengths and weaknesses.
Try this out these tennis tips the next time you play a leftie.
