Background: Heart failure is a burgeoning problem worldwide with approximately one half ofthe affected patients having normal or near‐normal left ventricular systolic function. Leftventricular diastolic dysfunction in an essential requirement for the diagnosis of this condition,but the extent of possible systolic function impairment remains enigmatic. Subtle systolicfunction abnormalities may not be reflected by estimation of conventional systolic functionparameters including ejection fraction, fractional shortening, and mean circumferential fibershortening rate.Objective: Studying the status of left ventricular systolic function in patients with diastolic heartfailure using novel parameters including mitral annular plane systolic excursion which reflectsLV longitudinal axis systolic shortening, pre‐ejection contraction time, isovolumic contractiontime, systolic ejection time and myocardial performance index (MPI).Methods: 30 paents with symptoms and/or signs of heart failure with echocardiographicevidence of diastolic dysfuncon and normal le ventricular ejecon fracon (> 50%) wererecruited for the study, in addion to 10 age‐ and sex‐matched healthy controls. All studysubjects and controls had full clinical history, physical examinaon, 12‐lead electrocardiogramand a comprehensive echocardiographic evaluation with measurement of a number of LVsystolic function parameters (fractional shortening, ejection fraction, mitral annular planesystolic excursion, myocardial performance index, precontraction time, contraction time, mitralannular systolic velocity and time to peak mitral annular systolic velocity.Results: There was no significant difference in LV systolic function parameters betweenpatients and controls apart from minor (but statistically significant) reduction in mitral annularplane systolic excursion (14.08 ± 2.84 vs 16.1 ± 2.69, p = 0.046 for patients and controlsrespectively).Conclusion: Our findings clearly show that patients with diastolic heart failure do not exhibitany significant impairment of left ventricular systolic function.