Strategies for Targeting an Opponent’s Backhand

Locate your opponents’ backhands. Locating where your opponents backhands are is one of the first things that you should do in the beginning of a game. This starts with determining your opponents’ handedness. The backhands will be in different locations on the court depending on if you are playing a righty-righty combo, a lefty-righty combo, or a lefty-lefty combo. If it is the standard righty-righty combo, the backhands will be to the right of each opponent (relative to you), so there will be one on the right wing and one in the middle. A lefty-righty combo will typically have the backhands on the outsides and the forehands in the middle if they are stacking, or backhands in the middle and forehands in the middle if they are not stacking. A lefty-lefty combo will mirror the righty-righty combo, with the backhands on the left of the player from your perspective. Many amateur players do not take note of their opponents’ handedness, and therefore go the entire game without targeting the backhand. This is a huge strategy that you could be missing out on!