Continental Grip – the Swiss Army knife of tennis

This is the most universally used grip in tennis. In fact, Continental means all-around grip. It was once known as the Aussie grip because famous Australian players such as Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall employed this grip for all of their shots—groundstrokes, volleys, serves, & overheads. The continental grip is most notably used for the serve, overhead, and volley. Because of its extreme versatility, this grip is also used to execute the half-volley, chip, slice, lob, and defensive shots. Players, who become comfortable early in their development with the continental grip, develop and progress much more rapidly.

Learning to play with the continental grip will give you the enormous advantage of never having to think about changing your grip when you are up at net, especially during a rapid-fire volley exchange (seen often in doubles). However, for many players, the Continental grip is too uncomfortable, because it does not place the hand and wrist squarely behind the impact with the ball, especially on the forehand side. The awkwardness is because most players are not taught to use this grip early in their development. I teach the continental grip first to my beginning students because it can be and is used on a variety of shots.

In my experience, most beginners feel more comfortable using an eastern forehand grip (EFG) on the forehand volley, and an eastern backhand grip (EBG) for the backhand volley. The EFG puts more of the palm of your hand behind the racquet, and players falsely think it makes the wrist stronger at contact. It doesn’t! It actually puts the wrist in a weaker position and renders the racquet face flat at contact with the ball, which causes the ball to either fly out of the court or nose dive into the net. But because so many players learn to hit groundstrokes first, the instinct is to use the same groundstroke grips when first learning to volley.

The late tennis great Arthur Ashe wrote in his book, Arthur Ashe on Tennis, “a player who uses an eastern forehand grip on the volley will hit topspin even if he is trying to hit the ball flat.” While it is rare, if ever at all, to see top-level and professional players using anything other than the continental grip on all volleys, you may occasionally see a player using a slight variation of the continental grip (perhaps in an effort to change from a groundstroke grip). With all of this said, here are some other significant reasons to learn the use the continental grip.  Return shots coming at you in the air are usually dropping so an open racquet face provides a natural rebound angle to volley the tennis ball back over the net. Typically, if you hit with eastern grips, you tend to hit flatter shots with the racquet laid back at or behind your hitting hand. This will produce a reflective downward angle of racquet face. This downward reflective angle explains why so many players using eastern grips on their volleys often witness their shots powered into the net…even when they are standing very close to it! You do not have to hit a ball “down” to make the ball come down into the court. A flat volley will almost always produce a response that is angled downward. The best players in the world hit with some element of backspin on most all their volleys. (Except in the obvious case of the swinging topspin volley, which has become a part of the modern game.) The continental grip naturally produces an open racquet face to add some backspin to the ball.

 Adding backspin helps you control the volley. Shots hit with little or no spin, tend to rebound faster off of the racquet face with greater pace than you can control. Especially lower shots, the backspin allows you to be aggressive with a firm stroke yet not hit the ball so hard that it will sail long every time. On shots dipping below net level (volleyed at an upward angle to clear the net), adding backspin to the volley helps convert some of the pace of the ball to spin and decreases the forward velocity of the shot, allowing you to hit with more authority rather than having to “dink” the shot to keep it in. The EFG often sets the racquet head back too far behind the hand to aggressively control this shot. Moreover, angled volleys are much less problematic using the continental grip.

 Speed of Reaction. Changing grips for volleys from an eastern forehand to an eastern backhand grip during a rally takes time, and as you play against more skilled and competitive players, rallies at the net become quicker and balls are hit at you with greater pace, spin, and accuracy.

Some say that if a player can switch grips when returning a 130 mph serve, they should have ample time to switch grips at the net. This is a misleading analogy. The serve slows down somewhat from 80 feet away, especially after bouncing. Having some 80 feet to react to the serve is considerably easier than trying to read a passing shot from 40 feet away on a ball that won’t be bouncing or slowing down much at all. And when players get engaged at the net in a fast exchange, the ability to change grips becomes even more problematic.

 Serving with the continental grip allows you to pronate during contact – accelerating the racquet head – father than decelerating the racquet head which is what happens when using the EFG. Also, because you use the same grip for flat, slice topspin serves, it is harder for your opponent to read your intention.

 Learning to become comfortable and competent with the continental grip helps you develop a good backspin (slice) forehand and backhand groundstroke as well as a volley. The action of a backspin approach shot is very similar to that of a good volley. The approach shot usually commands a bit longer swing path and follow through.

 Reacting quickly to an overhead is more natural when you volley with the continental grip. It is strikingly obvious that players who volley with a continental grip will be able to go up very quickly and hit an overhead without having to even think about change grips.

 Touch and finesse are easier with a continental grip. As mentioned above, the eastern grip tends to lay the racquet back more; therefore, when you attempt to hit a delicate drop volley or a soft volley lob, or an acute angled volley, the wrist has to move forward to square the racquet with the eastern grips. This seemly slight movement prohibits you from developing the necessary touch to execute these shots with control and consistency.

Players who master the continental grip are usually able to volley from anywhere on the court, (making approach volleys far more effective and potent), have more options—angle volleys, touch volleys, drive volleys, etc—and are able to react to quicker shots and quick exchanges with greater time and better control. Sure, you can volley with just about any grip just as you can type using just two fingers! But which typist is going to win a contest for typing most words per minute?

Yes, learning to play with a continental grip takes longer for most players if not learned in the beginning. But in the long run, the success that will follow the temporary letdown and discomfort will be much more gratifying than the immediate gratification of volleying with a destructive grip just because it feels more comfortable.

The Continental grip is truly the Swiss Army knife of tennis. Take some time to practice it and you will be amazed at how it simplifies and improves your game.