Tennis - Left-handers focus

Events / Editor / 07 March 2007 / Leave a Comment

Rafael Nadal goes into this week's Masters event at Indian Wells with one proud boast that no other player can match.

The Spanish youngster is the only current left hander - man or woman - to have won a major singles title.

The 2005 and 2006 French Open champion also has the distinction of beating Roger Federer in Rome and Monte Carlo in Masters Cup events last year - and Britain's Andy Murray was the only other player to topple the world number one in 2006.

But Federer, of course, beat Nadal to win Wimbledon and also outplayed him in the Masters Cup semi-finals in Shanghai on the way to the title.

Might is RIGHT you might say. At least it is at the moment at the top of world tennis.

Only five left-handers will contest the men's Pacific Life event over the next two weeks in Indian Wells - Nadal, Finland's Jarkko Nieminen, Spain's Fernando Verdasco and Austria pair Stefan Koubek and Jurgen Melzer - who lost to Lleyton Hewitt in the final in the Las Vegas tournament.

Nadal is second in the world rankings, Nieminen is ranked 19th, Melzer is 31st in the standings, Verdasco is the world number 33 and Koubek is ranked 65th.

So Nadal stands head and shoulders above the other four in terms of being a genuine Grand Slam or major title contender. He is trading at 2.32 with Betfair to win a major this year.

The Spaniard is also trading at 5.7 to be victorious in this year's ATP Champions race, with Federer the 1.06 favourite.

The women's game is not much different. Of those playing in Indian Wells in the Sony Ericsson opener, which runs in tandem with the men's event, Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic is number 26, Sybille Bammer of Austria is world number 44, Emilie Loit of France is ranked 52nd, Emma Laine of Finland is ranked 96th and Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic is 98th in the world.

The highest-ranked leftie, Patty Schnyder of Switzerland, currently 13th in the rankings, has 10 career titles to her name but isn't playing Indian Wells.

Safarova has so far won three titles, Bammer one, Loit three - following her win at Acapulco on Sunday - Laine none and Benesova one.

Nadal is clearly the exception among men and women. Two Grand Slams and a title haul of 17 and he is still only 20-years-old.

So where have all the lefties gone? In the men's game the 1970s and 1980s were boom time for lefthanders.

Between 1974 and 1984 only left-handers won the US Open men's singles title thanks to Jimmy Connors (4), Manual Orantes, Guillermo Vilas and John McEnroe (4).

It was back in 1984 that McEnroe won both Wimbledon and the US Open, the last time a leftie won either title. In fact, McEnroe and Connors put a left-handed hold on Wimbledon from 1981 to 1984.

In the women's game, left-handers haven't figured on the singles roll of honour at the majors since 1996, when Monica Seles won the Australian Open. She also won the French title in 1990, 1991 and 1992 and the US Open in 1991 and 1992.

But no leftie has won the women's singles title at Wimbledon since Martina Navratilova in 1990.