Finding the grip

Curious

Curious

G.O.A.T.
I struggle switching between forehand and backhand grips during the point. Are there any tips to develop the skill to change grip quickly? Between SW forehand, continental and eastern backhand. I get close but not exactly the perfect correct grip every time.

Also do you have to go counterclockwise with the left hand while changing the grip from forehand to backhand? If done clockwise the distance between sw fh and eastern Bh is much shorter.
 
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Sitting relatively upright in a living room chair or sofa ... starting with the racquet head dead center at Ready Position ... with a dominant forehand grip and the non-dominant hand's thumb and fingers on the THROAT (We're talking 1HBH ... and NO index finger on the string bed) ... practice changing grips using only the OFF hand doing ALL of the work ... thousands of times AS YOU WATCH TELEVISION ... also remembering to come back to dead center Ready Position after each change.

The key is for your non-diminant wrist to learn to torque the racquet shaft the perfect amount for the desired backhand grip ... each and every time.

Another part of the problem many players have is actually not the grip change itself ... but that they don't MINDFULLY come back to the exact same Ready Position every time.

~ MG
 
Since you seem to change grips (recently mentioned change to SW fh, also tinkering with bh also, no?) it will be tougher on you. Once you settle on your preferred grips and do them countless times, they will be second nature. Ever watch the pros get their serve grip. No fanfare there. Other than Lendl who seemed to almost wrench it into his hand, most don’t even need their off hand to get it correct instantly.
 
The problem might be with how your fingers rest on the handle. You might want to slightly alter your grip for a more secure finger hold.

For example, if you're trying to use a "perfect" SW grip (knuckle on bevel 4), your thumb and/or index finger may not have a stable resting point on the handle. So it might be worth it to have either a lighter or stronger SW grip if it means your fingertips can find the grip more readily. In the case of the SW grip, I like my index to be flat on bevel 7 and my inner thumb to be on bevel 8, but this gives me a slightly mild SW grip, based on knuckle position. But the upside is that I can reliably find this grip.
 
I have extremish grips on both wings.
After every shot I reset to continental straight away.
I then change to my next grip on the next incoming shot. (If I need to - my bh slice and volley is continental)
My non-dominant hand controls throat of racquet while my other hand only cradles the handle lightly between shots to allow for fast change
 
jga111 said:
I have extremish grips on both wings.
After every shot I reset to continental straight away.
I then change to my next grip on the next incoming shot. (If I need to - my bh slice and volley is continental)
My non-dominant hand controls throat of racquet while my other hand only cradles the handle lightly between shots to allow for fast change
Click to expand...
Do you judge whether you get the right grip by the feel in the nondominant hand? Do you use bevels as a reference point? I mean the feeling in your palm on bevel surfaces or edges?
 
Curious said:
Do you judge whether you get the right grip by the feel in the nondominant hand? Do you use bevels as a reference point? I mean the feeling in your palm on bevel surfaces or edges?
Click to expand...

Focus on feeling rather than bevel.
Sometimes you need to react so fast (like a service return, smash pick up) where you will not always find the desired grip, but you compensate accordingly.

To practice:

Move to your forehand. Remember how it feels
Then move to continental. Then go back to your forehand how ever long it takes that give you the same feeling.
Repeat, try and speed it up. Eventually you’ll be able to do it very fast.

Do it on both wings, non dominant hand doing most of the work.
 
Look at Gasquet here. He is in ready at continental. Look how he switches to bh grip on the move.


Interesting to see some pros ready in their FH grip.

Do what is comfortable for you.
 
I believe going from SW forehand to EBH all the way around is not something unreal. Use your off-hand as guys suggested. Go out with your ball machine, set it up to feed you BH balls. Prep with FH grip and rotate for every shot. Hit lots of balls, and you’ll master it and never question it again.
 
Curious said:
Do you judge whether you get the right grip by the feel in the nondominant hand? Do you use bevels as a reference point? I mean the feeling in your palm on bevel surfaces or edges?
Click to expand...

Getting my grip set is done by feel on the dominant hand. Two things that help me with that are 1. always wrapping my grips the same way and 2. always holding the same side of the handle for each shot.

What I mean by 1 is that, if I start my base grip on one side of the handle, then I always start my overgrip on the opposite bevel. What I mean by 2 is that I always have my palm on the side where the base grip starts (opposite side from where the overgrip starts). So if, for example, I were to play with one of the Head Gravity models, you’d see that I always hit forehands with one color facing forward and backhands with the other color facing forward. Which color is which depends on how I wrap the grips.

The reason I do that is because it makes it much easier to feel the correct position for my hand. The bump where the the base grip starts should always feel a certain way under my palm, and the overlaps on the overgrip should always feel a certain way under my fingertips and along my index finger. That’s in addition to the feel of the bevels themselves.
 
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Curious said:
I struggle switching between forehand and backhand grips during the point. Are there any tips to develop the skill to change grip quickly? Between SW forehand, continental and eastern backhand. I get close but not exactly the perfect correct grip every time.

Also do you have to go counterclockwise with the left hand while changing the grip from forehand to backhand? If done clockwise the distance between sw fh and eastern Bh is much shorter.
Click to expand...
lol, @J011yroger is gonna hate this advice... but i build up one of my bevels
i started doing this when transitioning grips from "hawaiian" to "semi-western"... main issue is that training my hand to find the right bevel combo was challenging, especially under time pressure....
IMO the bevel location on your hand is a refined feeling, and can take a long time to develop...
 
nyta2 said:
lol, @J011yroger is gonna hate this advice... but i build up one of my bevels
i started doing this when transitioning grips from "hawaiian" to "semi-western"... main issue is that training my hand to find the right bevel combo was challenging, especially under time pressure....
IMO the bevel location on your hand is a refined feeling, and can take a long time to develop...
Click to expand...

I just spin the racquet and grab it where it needs to be.


J
 
I wear medium sized gloves but play with a L5 grip plus overgrip. I use my index base knuckle and second thumb knuckle to reference the bevels for each grip.

That is, my thumb knuckle is always two bevels away from my index knuckle. For continental, my index knuckle is on bevel 2 and my thumb knuckle is on bevel 7. For eastern forehand, index is on 3 and thumb on 8. SW forehand is index on 4 and thumb on 1. Etc. etc.

I can pretty reliably feel this on grip sizes down to around L3 with overgrip, provided the base grip is leather so there is bevel definition. My wife's racket is synthetic base grip L2 plus overgrip and I get a little bit lost playing with her racket.
 
Mountain Ghost said:
Sitting relatively upright in a living room chair or sofa ... starting with the racquet head dead center at Ready Position ... with a dominant forehand grip and the non-dominant hand's thumb and fingers on the THROAT (We're talking 1HBH ... and NO index finger on the string bed) ... practice changing grips using only the OFF hand doing ALL of the work ... thousands of times AS YOU WATCH TELEVISION ... also remembering to come back to dead center Ready Position after each change.

The key is for your non-diminant wrist to learn to torque the racquet shaft the perfect amount for the desired backhand grip ... each and every time.

Another part of the problem many players have is actually not the grip change itself ... but that they don't MINDFULLY come back to the exact same Ready Position every time.

~ MG
Click to expand...
This is very good advice, so naturally, I do the opposite.

Rather than twist the racket with the non-dominant hand,
I hold the racket steady with my left (ND) and move my right hand.

From the back court, hitting ground strokes, you should really only
need to swap back and forth between forehand and backhand grips.
Most of us tend to hit more forehands than backhands- so I hold the
racket with a forehand grip and change to a backhand when needed.
That way you only need to make one change- not go from neutral (continental) to forehand to backhand-
except for overheads.

While at the net you should not need to change back and forth from continental grip.

Practice against a wall or with a ball machine- alternate hitting 2 forehands, then 2 backhands until
you begin to make the changes without any conscious effort.
 
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