How to play with a southpaw?

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Javier Concepción , professional Adidas player Padel discusses the following topic: how to play with a left-hander from the point of view of his partner as that of his opponents.

I played this end of the season with García Diestro and the Madrid Challenger with my other fellow adidas Alex Ruiz lefty also.

So I thought it was an opportunity to talk about these famous "left-handed".

At the amateur level, we often fear playing against a left-hander because we don't know how to play them. But it is actually a lack of habit, because in the end, it remains a player like any other!

I will tell you about my experience as a professional player. I hope this will help you in your future matches.

Some tracks to play a left-handed

First observation and it is certainly the main one: A pair made up of a left-handed and a right-handed person is often more aggressive than a pair made up of two right-handed people for example. Both players can take on the function of playing forward and especially spiking. The strong blow of the two partners is therefore in the middle. And this point can be a flaw. Because if the partners do not or not speak enough to each other, it can become complicated. The mixed pair must therefore have validated before playing the famous "who takes what".

Here are the points that can complicate things when playing a left-hander:

flight: the characteristic of a left-hander is his parallel volley when the ball hits the side wall diagonally and then the back wall. For the opponent, everything is reversed. It often takes time to adapt.

Lhit: Watch out for left-handed PAR 3!

The vibra : the effect that the ball obtains when a left-hander performs a vibora is different from that of a right-hander, complicating the opponent's defense.

That's why playing with a southpaw can have benefits. But the mixed pair has an interest in communicating well. So much so that the opposing pair can try to take advantage of a possible failure in this respect.

The lob and its fly

When you play a left-hander you have to focus on two main things before the game: the lob and the volley.

The lob because you have to change its direction obviously avoiding the center. It will be along the line or the crusader. But no lob in the middle.

Same for the volley, against a southpaw, you have to try to play more in the parallel and therefore look for the volley of flips. However, this is not the general norm when playing a southpaw because it will also adapt according to the qualities of each player.

To conclude, we can say that playing padel with a left-handed player opens more possibilities, more angles as well. It is a series of advantages that a right-handed player cannot give if this left-handed player knows how to take advantage of this condition of course.

Franck Binisti

Franck Binisti discovered padel at the Club des Pyramides in 2009 in the Paris region. Since then, padel has been part of his life. You often see him touring France to cover major French padel events.