Life is a little different when you are left handed, but you probably already knew that. With only about 10% of the population being left handed, this common trait still feels a little unusual. However, although you all too often find yourself living in a right handed world, there are occasional perks to being sinistrous.

As with many other sports, being left handed can work to your advantage in a variety of ways in a tennis match. Here are a few things that you need to know as a left handed player.

Matching the general population, only about 10% of tennis players are left handed. This means that your opponents will mostly play against right handed players, so they will not be used to the quirks that come with playing a lefty.

Especially when playing against an opponent for the first time, you can use this statistic to your advantage. It is likely that a right handed player will be thrown off center by the unusual direction of your swings, so you can capitalize on this by playing aggressively at the start of the match to gain an early lead.

A slice serve from a lefty can be challenging for a right handed player to return. While they are used to going after these powerful, fast serves with their forehand, your slicer will require them to return with their backhand.

Although a left handed player has to return a right handed slice with their backhand as well, the lefty still has the advantage because they will be serving from their side on some of the more important points (40-30 or 30-40).

Even when it is not a serve, a righty returning with their backhand will always be more of a challenge for them when facing a left handed player. They cannot fall back on returning crosscourt to a lefty’s strong forehand, so they will be forced to return more down the line.

The unusualness of this return is likely to throw off most right handed players and prompt them to have weaker returns and make more mistakes.

To capitalize on your advantage as a left handed tennis player, it is important that you put considerable time and effort into mastering the slice out wide, the slice down the “T”, and a forehand cross court with topspin.

Although it may be challenging to master these techniques for anyone, the rewards for a left handed player are even greater than that of a right handed player.

Although there are unique aspects to playing left handed in tennis, the statistics do not support the idea that being left handed automatically makes someone better at playing tennis. If this were the case, far more than 10% of professional tennis players would be left handed.

The truth is, it is a strength that you can play to, but nothing but hard work and dedication can make anyone a great tennis player.

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