Learning Left Handed Serve.

[acintya]

I am a right hander playing as a leftie, everything except the serve. Now I plan to learn the left handed serve from scratch!

I trained it now for about 10 hours and I can do a beginners spin serve but not with the full motion. I am curious about how long would it take to develop a good throwing motion with my left hand that would be on paar with my right hand?

I found out also something very exciting. While my right hand delivers the power and I was always learning to add a ton of spin to my serve - now when learning the left handed serve the learning experience is the opposite!! Now I am learning to put power to spin as I can feel the spin as crazy with my left hand and I will trade consistency for speed at any time since i am not an advanced player - we are talking about a 4.0 player here and I will play with such players in next 5 years so I have time. This is also the same with the forehand - there is so much spin - I sometimes cant believe how much (because there is not a lot of power but the spin is huge) - look at this from this perspective - when you playing with your dominant hand its more difficult to feel\separate spin at power - with the non dominant you have the spin but you are the nadding power - i cant really describe it - you must try it for yourself.

You will for sure ask why I play leftie - but please dont as I will not change my mind.
you will sure ask why I dont keep my rightie serve. ecause its ****** unreliable! I have a decent first serve but my second serve sucks and I t hink if I put another 50 hours in my leftie spin serve it will be better as my right second serve. Why? I dont know - but I feel the "adding spin" with my left hand more. Just... I know to do a full leftie service motion will be awkward for some time--- but how long if I will train hard?

I am throwing balls, thinking about buying something heavier to train my throwing motion with my left hand.

But when I start in an "abbreviated" serve position - like for example this guy (Jay Berger) I have absolutely not problems with the hitting.. For the first time ever I like to learn a serve..:

Give me an honest opinion please. One year? Two? I dont need the fastest serve - I want reliable serves.
And who should I emulate? Nadal? Ivanisevic?
I have the time and will - it will be hard but I think I can bring it to a higher level than my right hand.

I am already playing against righties but I am am still shy with my left handed forehand and sometimes I just use my two handed forehand because I am still not confident enough. But soon my fh will be ready to launch.

 

[Kevo]

I played a 3.5 league once left handed. The serve was definitely the hardest part. I even went one handed on the backhand as I felt like the two handed lefty backhand was a bit unfair at 3.5 being so close to my righty forehand. It took me probably a month to be able to hit my lefty serve consistently enough to play matches with it. It was still very awkward and very much a mental exercise to do anything good with it. I still try to hit it occasionally, but I just don't think any amount of practice is going to make it even 80% as good as my righty serve. If I were even a little bit ambidextrous I might have a shot at it, but I'm not.

So I would say if you aren't a bit ambidextrous you might be able to get to 80-85% as good as your dominant hand, but I wouldn't expect much more than that.

The only way I think you might be able to get it close to your dominant hand is to start doing everything with your non-dominant hand. That might give you a shot at it.

 

[acintya]

I played a 3.5 league once left handed. The serve was definitely the hardest part. I even went one handed on the backhand as I felt like the two handed lefty backhand was a bit unfair at 3.5 being so close to my righty forehand. It took me probably a month to be able to hit my lefty serve consistently enough to play matches with it. It was still very awkward and very much a mental exercise to do anything good with it. I still try to hit it occasionally, but I just don't think any amount of practice is going to make it even 80% as good as my righty serve. If I were even a little bit ambidextrous I might have a shot at it, but I'm not.

So I would say if you aren't a bit ambidextrous you might be able to get to 80-85% as good as your dominant hand, but I wouldn't expect much more than that.

The only way I think you might be able to get it close to your dominant hand is to start doing everything with your non-dominant hand. That might give you a shot at it.

thanks - thats fair. I am a little ambidextrous I must say - or at least I think I am.. Also I have been playing drums for 4 years leading with my left hand - that gives me some advantage I think. Its funny how fast the serve clicked - I needed only about a half hour to start training a left handed spin serve. The first 50 tries though were very awkward. I will see how it will go. The hardest part will be to do the whole serve motion I guess. Thats really odd\awkward because I am not used to throwing left handed - but I am learning.

I have no big problems with the leftie forehand (only very high balls) and backhand slice - and I also have a very strong lefty two handed backhand.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

Have someone feed you low lobs with you standing around the SL and hit 50% power OHs. As you get comfortable, start moving towards the BL.

Shadow serve and video yourself. Compare it to your righty serve.

 

[acintya]

Have someone feed you low lobs with you standing around the SL and hit 50% power OHs. As you get comfortable, start moving towards the BL.

Shadow serve and video yourself. Compare it to your righty serve.

thanks

 

[acintya]

Have someone feed you low lobs with you standing around the SL and hit 50% power OHs. As you get comfortable, start moving towards the BL.

Shadow serve and video yourself. Compare it to your righty serve.

Did you watch the Dutra SIlva - Djokovic match today? Why not serve like he? he skips a few steps of the serve and starts in the racquet drop phase.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

Did you watch the Dutra SIlva - Djokovic match today? Why not serve like he? he skips a few steps of the serve and starts in the racquet drop phase.

I never liked the abbreviated motion purely on aesthetic grounds. But it's obviously sound or else Roddick wouldn't have done so well. I think Garcia-Lopez does this also.

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

thanks - thats fair. I am a little ambidextrous I must say - or at least I think I am.. Also I have been playing drums for 4 years leading with my left hand - that gives me some advantage I think. Its funny how fast the serve clicked - I needed only about a half hour to start training a left handed spin serve. The first 50 tries though were very awkward. I will see how it will go. The hardest part will be to do the whole serve motion I guess. Thats really odd\awkward because I am not used to throwing left handed - but I am learning.

I have no big problems with the leftie forehand (only very high balls) and backhand slice - and I also have a very strong lefty two handed backhand.

Did you ever develop that lefty serve? Hopefully, you found a better simplified serve, as a model, than the idiosyncratic Jay Berger motion.

You can throw old rackets in the park, to develop that lefty throwing motion. I naturally throw balls right-handed but, after a little bit of practice, I could throw rackets (steep angle upwards) equally well with either arm

 

[toth]

When i was injured i tried to play with my non dominant left hand.
Only the forehand groundstroke was not hopeless...
Backhand and serve was total hopeless...

 

[Cap]

I am learning to play on both sides (for 2 years now) and confirm the serve is the hardest to learn.
After one year (started with forehand, serve was last added) serving practice I am getting closer, but still not good enough to use lefty serve in matches.
Forehand is OK now, I can slice, volley and overhead with left hand.

 

[ballmachineguy]

I found the backhand was easiest learning lefty. Fewer moving parts. Serve is a beeyatch. Can’t lift my tossing arm past parallel to ground. That doesn’t help.

 

[FuzzyYellowBalls]

Five year old thread, rise, rise from the dead!

 

[onehandbh]

@acintya post a video of your lefty serve!

 

[Curious]

The result was quite poor even for the most talented.

 

[Hurting Elbow]

I am a right hander playing as a leftie, everything except the serve. Now I plan to learn the left handed serve from scratch!

I trained it now for about 10 hours and I can do a beginners spin serve but not with the full motion. I am curious about how long would it take to develop a good throwing motion with my left hand that would be on paar with my right hand?

I found out also something very exciting. While my right hand delivers the power and I was always learning to add a ton of spin to my serve - now when learning the left handed serve the learning experience is the opposite!! Now I am learning to put power to spin as I can feel the spin as crazy with my left hand and I will trade consistency for speed at any time since i am not an advanced player - we are talking about a 4.0 player here and I will play with such players in next 5 years so I have time. This is also the same with the forehand - there is so much spin - I sometimes cant believe how much (because there is not a lot of power but the spin is huge) - look at this from this perspective - when you playing with your dominant hand its more difficult to feel\separate spin at power - with the non dominant you have the spin but you are the nadding power - i cant really describe it - you must try it for yourself.

You will for sure ask why I play leftie - but please dont as I will not change my mind.
you will sure ask why I dont keep my rightie serve. ecause its ****** unreliable! I have a decent first serve but my second serve sucks and I t hink if I put another 50 hours in my leftie spin serve it will be better as my right second serve. Why? I dont know - but I feel the "adding spin" with my left hand more. Just... I know to do a full leftie service motion will be awkward for some time--- but how long if I will train hard?

I am throwing balls, thinking about buying something heavier to train my throwing motion with my left hand.

But when I start in an "abbreviated" serve position - like for example this guy (Jay Berger) I have absolutely not problems with the hitting.. For the first time ever I like to learn a serve..:

Give me an honest opinion please. One year? Two? I dont need the fastest serve - I want reliable serves.
And who should I emulate? Nadal? Ivanisevic?
I have the time and will - it will be hard but I think I can bring it to a higher level than my right hand.

I am already playing against righties but I am am still shy with my left handed forehand and sometimes I just use my two handed forehand because I am still not confident enough. But soon my fh will be ready to launch.

How did the lefty serve work out?

 

[time_fly]

You might be able to develop a decent lefty serve but it probably will always lag behind the potential of your right handed serve. If righties could learn to throw just as well with their left hand with practice then there would be a lot more lefty pitchers in baseball.

 

[acintya]

How did the lefty serve work out?

two kids

 

[Cashman]

I have a pretty decent ambidextrous serve. Not perfectly interchangeable but I can competently execute the shot with my off hand.

I put it down to the fact I grew up playing cricket and learned to throw extremely well with both hands. The serve is mostly just a throwing motion.

 

[acintya]

Five year old thread, rise, rise from the dead!

I still practice the left handed forehand.
I really feel like Nadal. There is only one problem and that are very high balls. For some reason timing gets way harder, because you have more time and you need to have a fluid motion. Also the higher contact point and everything raised makes it hard.
Its kinda strange. Faster balls are easier to handle than slow high balls. Its more like a project for me.
If nothing else my two handed rightie backhand is now a weapon.

 

[kayak4water]

@acintya: great to see you’re on court! Do the two kids go with?

Short story made long: I started playing late 2019. I hadn’t played since 1972 (2 years in junior high school). I wanted to learn groundstrokes with topspin— tennis became new again. Due to a dominant (right) wrist injury, I started playing tennis with my left hand. The choice was switch or don’t play at all. A year later, the right wrist healed completely and I started playing with that hand. My right shoulder started acting up three weeks ago, forcing me back to the left.

After almost four years I have a grasp of my problem learning this thing. I’ve been focusing too much on hitting the ball and watching it sail away. This week I began to focus on getting clean contact with the ball. If I can achieve that, power will follow. My groundstrokes are evolving—like you, my 2HBH shows early promise. I’m learning to volley using two hit drills to gain touch. I’ve hit some two handed BH volleys in rallies-that’s a Blast. Good footwork really helps, if I remember.

Serves are another story. I’ve watched dozens of YouTube serve videos. I mix shadow swings with hits. Tonight’s take home lesson was to relax and learn a smooth swing without hitches—if I can place the ball in the swing path at a credible contact point I give myself a pat on the back. Better discipline would help me ignore all my bad tosses. My age causes me to “forget” and learn it all again the next day, which makes this more interesting.

Happy hitting!

 

[acintya]

I am a drummer also:

tennis and drumming share some thing. for example:

its easier to drum at a moderate-fast tempo than a really slow tempo (slow high balls are way harder to crush in tennis than moderate-fast balls)
the more space betwen notes the more you inner "metronome" must work and calculate.
its similar when you start to hit slow high balls with your non dominant hand. your metronome must work and your brain needs to calculate the trajectory and when actually is the best time to hit the ball.
Sometimes TIME can be your enemy. Because if you have more time strokes needs to slow dont and you can make more mistakes in that period.

If someone gives you a normal fast ball you really dont have time to overthink,you just need to trust your feeling but when everything slows down you more thing need to click for you to be able to execute the perfect stroke.