You know the feeling. You warm up against a lefty, everything looks normal, then the first point starts and suddenly your backhand is under siege. Your favourite patterns don't work. Your serve out wide to the deuce court comes back at your feet. Nothing has changed about your game — but everything has changed about the geometry of the court.

Here's why that happens, and what to actually do about it.

The problem is mirrors, not magic

A right-hander's forehand cross-court goes to the opponent's backhand. That's the bread-and-butter exchange of junior tennis, and it's baked into your instincts from the first rally you ever played. Against a lefty, that same cross-court forehand lands on their forehand — their weapon, not their weakness.

So the pattern isn't just failing. It's actively feeding them. Meanwhile their cross-court forehand, the shot they've been grooving since they were eight, lands on your backhand. The two of you are running the same play, and only one of you gets the reward.

That's the whole trick. Lefties aren't better. They're just used to a world where the majority of their opponents — right-handers — have been handing them a favourable matchup their whole lives. The discomfort you feel in point one is a discomfort they've never had to feel.

Serve patterns get scrambled

On the deuce court, your slice serve out wide pulls a right-hander off the court and opens the whole ad side. Against a lefty, that same serve goes to their forehand — the return they'd choose if you let them pick.

Flip it: the serve you'd normally avoid is often the one you want. On the deuce court, a body serve or a serve into the backhand corner does more work than the wide slider. On the ad court, the wide serve to a lefty's backhand becomes genuinely awkward for them — it's the mirror of the serve that troubles you on the deuce side.

You don't need new serves. You need to swap which ones you trust.

Tactics that actually travel

Three adjustments are worth more than any amount of grinding.

First, find the backhand. It's almost always the ad-court corner and the middle of the deuce court. Your cross-court forehand is still a great shot — but against a lefty it's the wrong cross-court. Aim it down the line or into the body instead, and save the big cross-court for when you've earned a short ball.

Second, use the body serve more. Lefties, like everyone, hate a ball at the hip. It takes the forehand away without asking you to hit a low-percentage target.

Third, attack the second serve. This isn't lefty-specific — but lefties who've coasted on matchup advantage often have return games built on rhythm rather than pressure. Take the ball early, step in, and make them defend the thing they're not used to defending.

Practise the mirror, not the memory

You cannot fix this in a match. You fix it in practice, by finding a lefty and playing sets where you only train the corrected patterns — forehand down the line, serve to the backhand, return position adjusted half a step. Ten minutes of this a week beats an hour of thinking about it mid-match.

The goal isn't to feel comfortable. It's to make the lefty feel what you feel: that the court has quietly rearranged itself, and nobody told them.

Take it to court

• Swap your serve targets. Deuce court: body or backhand corner. Ad court: the wide one to their backhand. Rehearse it before you need it.
• Your cross-court forehand is now a down-the-line forehand. Same swing, different target — because the cross-court feeds their strength.
• Book a lefty hitting partner. Twenty minutes of corrected patterns is worth more than any tactical insight you remember at 4-4 in the third.