Lefties and penholders

Isaac Chan Asked 14 years ago

Hi, Pingskills

Recently, I began training with a training partner who's a lefty. Training with him has made me come to realize that playing with lefties is extremely different than from playing with your classic right handed player. My normal strategy of serving a ball that goes counterclockwise so that the return is directed to my forehand, and then hitting a crosscourt shot followed by a straight shot doesn't work to it's full potential anymore. Hitting a straightshot off the forehand from a backspin shot is extremely risky. Therefore, I tend to stick with the cross-court, however, my training partner is a very skilled blocker, and a slightly shorter cross-court is blocked from inside the table, which makes it difficult to rebuild a second, more powerful attack. I tried serving a clockwise shot so that the return would go to my backhand so that I would get the opportunity to take a cross-court shot from my backhand towards their forehand. However, I have come to realize that a forehand return from that position often leads the ball to a further angle so that it makes it predictable that I would hit a cross-court shot, please advice. 

Also, a second tactic of mine is to hit speed shots and slow shots to the area where a decision between forehand and backhand isn't evident. It works great against regular shakehand grip players, often giving me an opportunity to attack if it works well, or at least putting the opposing player out of place if it doesn't. However, against penhold players, they can attack from that position, making the tactic inviable, is there any spot like the one previously mentioned that I can abuse against penholders

Kindly Advice

Isaac