Tennis Continental Grip | Complete Guide
The Tennis Continental Grip | Grip for Volleys and Serves
The neutral grip or hammer grip. You will use this for the tennis serve, volley, overhead smash, slice/chip, drop shot, blocking and defensive scrambling. This versatile grip allows you to hit down on the ball to generate enormous backspin.
This is the traditional grip that was used back in the day where game play was focused on serving and volleying. Given the changes in the game play becoming more aggressive over the recent few decades, this grip is no longer effective at the baseline for groundstrokes as it imparts little to no topspin.
How the Continental Grip is held:
- Racket position on palm
- Bevel numbers
The Most Versatile Grip| Continental Grip
It has to do with how the angle of the tennis racket is naturally when using this grip. It is perpendicular to the ground and can be easily adjusted to open up, racket face pointing to the sky, to allow you to hit down on the ball and impart backspin onto it.
With practice, you can manipulate the types of spin and the ability to absorb your opponents shot and reply with a deft drop shot that leave your opponents scrambling!
Probably the first grip you held when you started to learn tennis!
The Continental grip is suitable for a variety of shots and therefore is often taught to beginners to allow them to focus on the basics and not get confused with multiple grips.
However it is not recommended to be used as your forehand grip due to how the game has evolved. Its not impossible use the Continental grip as your forehand grip, but yea, do explore our other articles on the different tennis grips.
Should I use this grip?
ABSOLUTELY! Master it and use its versatility to had a whole need dimension to your game. You will make your opponent feel as if the tennis court is massive when you have the ability to drop the ball short and slice him out of the court!! If you are in Singapore, do reach out to us for a tennis lesson to really help you get this grip. Check out our tennis forehand, tennis backhand, tennis serve, and tennis volley pages to learn how to do these shots by yourself!
If you like such content, we have more tips for you on our Banana Tennis YouTube Channel.