If you buy one piece of tennis gear, buy court shoes: the ASICS Gel-Resolution X. A full-length AHAR Plus outsole under the most protective lateral support structure in tennis, and the only purchase here that affects whether you get injured rather than how well you play. After that, in order: a control frame (Wilson Blade 98 v9), a bag with a thermal racquet compartment, a multipack of overgrips, and a set of string.
This page is equipment, not apparel. Searches for “tennis gear for men” split between the two and we only cover one honestly: racquets, shoes, strings, bags and accessories. We do not rank shirts or shorts, and a page that did would be guessing at fit and fabric it has never handled.
Buy it in this order
1. Court shoes. Tennis is a sideways sport and running shoes have neither lateral support nor a court outsole. On an abrasive hard court there is a second reason: the surface is acrylic over concrete with silica sand in the coating, which abrades rubber the way a file abrades a fingernail. A running outsole lasts weeks.
2. A racquet that matches your swing, not your ambitions. The single most common men's buying error is going too heavy and too small too early. The error-pattern test is on the men's racquet page.
3. A bag with a thermal compartment. Heat destroys string tension, and a racquet that lives in a hot car plays measurably differently from one that does not. A nine-pack bag is also the only practical way to carry two frames strung identically, which is worth more than most upgrades if you play competitively.
4. Overgrips. A few dollars, replaced every few weeks, and the thing you touch on every shot. Men sweat more on average, which makes the dry-feel style of grip the default here rather than the tacky style.
5. String. Only once you know whether you break strings and whether your arm complains. Both answers change the choice completely — see how to choose tennis strings.
Toe drag: the men's-specific shoe problem
Watch any club men's match and count the players finishing the serve with the back toe scraping the court. It is most of them, and on a hard court the result is a hole through the medial forefoot while the rest of the shoe is barely broken in.
This is why the adidas Barricade is on this list alongside the Gel-Resolution: adidas publishes Adituff, a reinforced panel bonded over exactly the area that wears. If you have ever worn a hole in one specific spot, buy for that feature and it will save you a pair of shoes a year. Detail at best tennis shoes for men.
The grip question men get wrong
Too large, not too small. The club-shop instinct is to hand a bigger player a bigger grip, and a grip you have to squeeze harder to control is one of the recognized contributors to tennis elbow. It is measurable: with an eastern forehand grip, you should be able to slide your other index finger into the gap between your fingertips and the base of your thumb.
Between sizes, buy down and add an overgrip. A grip can be built up and cannot be reduced, so the asymmetry decides it. Full method at tennis grip size.
The one category this page does not rank is what you wear on court. The best tennis shorts for men covers that — why a 7-inch tennis-line short beats a gym short, and which ones can actually carry a second ball.
Two pages go deeper than this checklist. The best tennis clothing brands explains which makers to trust for which garment — and where paying brand money is wasted. And if you are carrying all of this to the court on your back, the tennis backpacks page is the format that suits a two-racquet club player better than a 12-pack does.
The kit, with what each item does
| Item | Our pick | Why this one | Replace every |
|---|
| Court shoes | ASICS Gel-Resolution X (Men's) | Full-length AHAR Plus outsole, re-engineered DYNAWALL support | 60–100 playing hours |
| Racquet | Wilson Blade 98 (16x19) v9 | 98 sq in control frame that rewards a full swing | 3–5 years |
| Bag | Wilson Super Tour 9-Pack | Thermal compartments; carries two frames strung identically | Years |
| Overgrip | Tourna Grip XL Original (30-pack) | Dry-feel rather than tacky — the right answer for sweaty hands | Every 4–8 sessions |
| String | Solinco Hyper-G Soft 17 | A softened poly: control without the usual stiffness penalty | See the restring schedule |
| Toe-drag alternative | adidas Barricade (Men's) | Published Adituff medial reinforcement over the wear zone | 60–100 playing hours |
What a complete kit costs
We do not print a total, because every price on this site is live and date-stamped and a total would be wrong by tomorrow. The shape of it: shoes and racquet are the two real costs and are roughly comparable to each other; bag, overgrips and a set of string together come to a fraction of either.
If only one of the two big items fits this month, buy the shoes and play with a borrowed or club frame. A mediocre racquet in good shoes is a better arrangement than the reverse, and the cheaper mistake to fix.
Two frames, strung the same
The upgrade men's league players most consistently skip. A string break mid-match on a single-frame setup means borrowing something unfamiliar or retiring, and “identically” is doing real work in that sentence: same string, same tension, same grip build-up, strung within a few days of each other. A spare frame that plays differently is barely better than no spare.
That is the practical argument for a nine-pack bag over a backpack, and for buying string by the reel once you have settled on one.
What we deliberately left out
Apparel — not our subject. Vibration dampeners, wristbands and elbow sleeves — all real products, none load-bearing. A dampener changes the sound and the feel of the frame and does not reduce the shock reaching your arm, whatever the packaging implies. If your arm hurts, the fix is the string and the tension.
A ball machine — genuinely transformative and genuinely expensive, and a second-wave purchase rather than a first kit. If you are already there, the cheap end is at the cheapest tennis ball machines.
Balls — a consumable bought by the case rather than a kit decision. Extra duty felt for hard courts; see best tennis balls for hard courts.
Two items this kit skips, and should not
Padded socks — four times the price of ordinary athletic socks, which is why nobody buys them for themselves, and the targeted forefoot and heel padding is what prevents a blister in a long match. Which thickness depends on how your shoes already fit: the tennis sock ranking.
Sport sunglasses — if you play outdoors. A sport frame stays on through an overhead and a fashion frame does not, and the whole criterion is lens height, not brand: the sunglasses ranking.
Where to go next by level
This is a kit, not a curriculum. The level hubs are where the picks get weighted for how you actually play: NTRP 2.0–3.0, NTRP 3.5–4.0 — the four-oh club, and NTRP 4.5+.
And if you are not buying this kit for yourself, tennis gifts for him is the same list reorganized by price for somebody who does not play tennis.
