How to Hold a Pickleball Paddle

Hold a pickleball paddle with a continental grip: shake hands with the handle so the V between your thumb and index finger sits on the top edge, spread the index finger slightly, and squeeze at about a four out of ten. That one grip covers dinks, volleys, blocks, serves and most drives, and it is the grip every coaching source we read recommends beginners start with. Everything else on this page is a refinement of it.

Why one grip, and why this one

Tennis players arrive with a library of grips and switch between them mid-point. Pickleball mostly does not allow that. Once four players are at the kitchen line, exchanges happen from about fourteen feet apart in a fraction of a second, and as one coaching guide puts it, “there is no time to switch.” You need a grip that is acceptable on the forehand, the backhand and the volley without changing, and that is what the continental is: the face sits square, so the same hand position hits both sides and blocks a fast ball at your chest.

Coaches describe it two ways. Post & Paddle calls it the handshake grip: hold the paddle edge-on, perpendicular to the ground, and shake hands with the handle. Pickleball US's Coach Vincent Tadler uses the bevels — the eight flat edges of the handle — and says “the index knuckle is your anchor”: on the continental, the index knuckle sits on bevel two, the one just clockwise of the top edge for a right-hander. Both methods land your hand in the same place; pick whichever you can feel.

Finding the continental grip, step by step

1. Hold the paddle edge-on, face perpendicular to the ground, with your non-dominant hand at the throat.
2. Shake hands with the handle. Your palm approaches from the side, not from above. If you are holding the paddle like a frying pan, you have come in from the wrong direction.
3. Check the V. The V formed by your thumb and index finger should sit on the top edge of the handle, or very slightly toward the left of it for a right-handed player. Equivalently: index knuckle on bevel two.
4. Spread the index finger slightly up the handle, like a trigger finger. It gives you control of the face angle without tightening the whole hand.
5. Relax. Aim for a three or four on a scale of one to ten. If your knuckles are turning white, as Tadler puts it, you are gripping too tight.

Grip pressure is the part everyone gets wrong

A death grip does three things, none of them good. It makes the paddle rigid, so a dink that should die pops up into an easy put-away. It kills the touch you need for a reset. And it loads the forearm on every hit, which is how a season of pickleball turns into a season of elbow pain — our tennis elbow paddle picks exist because of exactly this. Coaches converge on a number: three to four out of ten for dinks and resets, firming to five or six for a volley or block, and a momentary squeeze for an overhead before relaxing again. The grip should feel like you could have the paddle knocked out of your hand by a firm tap.

The eastern shift for topspin

The one place the continental gives something up is the topspin forehand drive. Rotating the hand slightly clockwise — index knuckle onto bevel three — closes the face a touch and makes brushing up the back of the ball more natural. Coaches describe this as “a small turn,” not a re-grip, and the trade is a weaker backhand and slower blocks if you get stuck there. A full western grip, another bevel further round, produces heavy topspin and is poor for “volleys, dinks and backhands, and it is rare in pickleball for exactly that reason.” If you are chasing spin, the paddle matters too: our spin paddle picks and spin-and-control picks rank the faces that reward the brush.

The two-handed backhand

Increasingly common, especially among tennis converts. Keep the dominant hand in its continental position and add the non-dominant hand above it. The second hand adds stability and power to a drive and a firmer block; the cost is reach, because two hands on the handle shortens how far you can stretch. Paddles with a longer handle exist for this — the 5.5-inch handle on the JOOLA Hyperionis the example on this site — but a two-hander works on a standard handle; it is just more crowded.

The mistakes coaches correct first

1. The frying-pan grip. Face up, hand on top, like holding a spatula. It feels natural on day one and makes every backhand and volley an adventure.
2. Choking up.Sliding the hand toward the face for “control.” It shortens your reach and it does not add control; a looser grip does.
3. Palming the handle. The handle should sit in the fingers, not buried in the palm. Fingers give you the face angle; the palm gives you a club.
4. Changing grips mid-rally. There is no time. Settle on the continental and make the eastern shift only on a forehand drive you have seen coming.

What to look for in the handle itself

None of the above works on a handle that is the wrong size or has gone slick. Grip circumference decides whether you can hold the paddle in the fingers at a four out of ten or have to clamp it in the palm; our grip size guide shows how to measure your hand, and sizing down and building up with an overgrip is almost always better than sizing up. The surface matters too: a worn, shiny grip forces you to squeeze harder just to keep the paddle from turning, which is the pressure problem coming in through the back door. An overgrip is the cheapest fix in the sport. The three below are the ones we rank for a first re-wrap, for sweaty hands and arm pain, and for a known brand — the full ranking is on our overgrips page.