Ultimate Tennis Grips Buying Guide: What's Best?

Tennis Grips - why bother reading a buying guide about it? Well how that racket feels in your hand is a huge factor in your performance, get the right grips, size and fit for your hand and you’ll upgrade your whole game!

We’ve put together a key summarised and more detailed list for you to help with your decision. We’ve also detailed aspects that you may not have considered when buying tennis grips. At first glance there can appear to be not much difference between tennis grips, but let us explain!

Tennis Grips – there's loads to choose from, what are the key things to look for when choosing?

1. Type of Grip:
Full grip / Replacement grip - Usually made of a synthetic compound and generally used by players that want 1 major grip on their racket. It’ll typically be a thick PU tacky feeling type of grip usually for the player and provides good cushioning between the fingers for extra shock absorption. These are typically the most popular style of grip for players.
Leather Grip - These give players a firm response setup, these traditionally were the gold standard, usually players use these as their base for their handle and often wrap an overgrip on top, as often leather can become slippery. Roger Federer is well known for his preference in using a leather grip.

Overgrip - This is placed over the top of a standard grip, it’s used to build the overall size of the handle, and is usually thinner than a regular grip. Typically you’ll see an over grip is particularly tacky and sticky to the hand, however there are also dry versions for players that sweat a lot or play in more humid playing conditions.
It’s used by many of the top players to tweak how they like to hold their tennis racket for a perfect fit and optimised performance.

2. What size of grip do I need?

Firstly it's important to know what the various grip sizes are, see the chart below:

Method 1:
This is key for maximizing your playing ability. So how do you do this?
1. Measure your tennis grip size with a ruler in your hand. Hold your hand open with your fingers fully extended and closed together, see the below picture.

Next, measure from the bottom crease of your hand up to the top of the ring finger. Write down the number of inches (to the 1/8 of an inch). You’ll find the typical measurement will be between 4 ¼ (Grip Size 2) and 4 ⅜ (Grip Size 3).

Method 2:
This is useful is you already have your racket and you’re trying to get an estimate measurement to work out if you need extra grip or how thick it needs to be.
Hold the racket with a hand-shake grip, next raise the thumb and place the other hands index finger in the space between thumb and fingers, like the picture below.

If there is not enough room for your finger, you need to increase the grip size. Alternatively if there is too much extra room, then that grip is too large and it’s size needs to be reduced.

 

3. What Style of Player you are?
The below is NOT a strict rule, more a generalisation. However it can be a useful tip. It's far more important to follow the grip size steps above.

Power Attacking – Usually suits a thicker grip, as players with this style generally hold their racket handles tighter to force powerful shots, in addition to this they’ll feel more secure in the hit. The drawback is the feel of the shot is less, so the level of control isn’t as good.

Speed, Spin, Control & Deception – Thinner Grip Size is preferred. Players with this style will prefer a thinner grip to enhance control over the racket head for quick changes of racket head position. It also enables a quicker changing of grip from forehand to backhand, plus the ability to create extra spin of the ball with the shot.

4. Other Tips and Advice:
- Remember grips need regular replacement, try and get a grip setup in place, where you only have to replace the outer layer, otherwise it can become more costly
- Try multiple sizes of grips to see what's right for you
- Not all players are the same, there's even some top pros prefer unusual grip setups, there’s not strict “right or wrong” to grips
- See video below on how to find the right tennis grip size for you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fMUveNCrLU
- See video below for how to grip your Tennis Grip properly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIhnYyoPP_U