How to Hold a Pickleball Paddle

The continental grip, and why it is the answer

Hold the paddle out in front of you with the face vertical, as if it were a hand offered for a handshake, and shake hands with it. That is the continental grip, and it is what the overwhelming majority of pickleball players should use for the overwhelming majority of shots.

The reason is structural rather than stylistic. In tennis, players use different grips for forehand, backhand, serve and volley, and they have time to change between them because the court is 78 feet long and the ball is travelling a long way. Pickleball has no such time. The court is 44 feet end to end, and a doubles rally at the non-volley-zone line puts two players roughly fourteen feet apart - the non-volley zone itself is seven feet on each side of the net, as USA Pickleball's own introduction to the game describes it. At that distance, a grip change is a shot you do not hit.

The continental grip's virtue is that it plays both wings without modification. The paddle face sits roughly neutral, so a forehand and a backhand are the same hand position with a different shoulder rotation. You give up a little top-end power on the forehand relative to a more extreme grip, and in exchange you are never caught holding the wrong grip for the ball that arrives. In a sport this fast, that trade is not close.

A common beginner error worth naming: holding the paddle like a frying pan, with the face horizontal and the hand on top of the handle. It feels natural and it works for a mid-court forehand, and then it makes the backhand nearly impossible and the dink uncontrollable. If a new player's backhand is catastrophic, the grip is the first thing to check.

How tight to hold it - the part nobody tells you

Grip pressure is more consequential than grip style and gets a fraction of the attention. The standard instruction, borrowed from racquet sports generally, is to hold the paddle about as firmly as you would hold a small bird you do not want to escape - secure, not crushing. On a one-to-ten scale, something around four or five for soft shots and firming up for a drive.

What a death grip costs you is specific. It locks the wrist, and the wrist is where touch comes from - every dink, drop and reset depends on the paddle being able to give slightly at contact. A rigid wrist turns a soft shot into a punch, which is why beginners pop dinks up for easy put-aways. It also transmits far more vibration into the forearm, which is the mechanism behind a lot of pickleball elbow complaints, and it is tiring in a way that shows up in the third game.

Here is the connection most instruction misses: if you cannot hold the paddle loosely, the problem may not be your technique. A handle that is too large for your hand cannot be held securely at low pressure - you have to squeeze to stop it rotating. Selkirk's own grip-size guidance gives the measurement (from the middle crease of the palm to the tip of the ring finger) and the rule that matters: when between sizes, go smaller, because an overgrip can add thickness and nothing can remove it. Our grip size guide walks through it, and our paddles for small hands page covers what to do when the handle is simply too fat.

The other hidden cause is a dead grip. A compressed, polished, slick grip cannot be held at low pressure either, so you squeeze harder without deciding to. That is a consumable problem with a three-minute fix, and it is worth ruling out before concluding anything about your technique.

What changes for the backhand, the serve and the net

On the two-handed backhand specifically: it is not a beginner shortcut, it is a real technique with a trade. Two hands give you more stability and more power on the backhand side, and they cost you reach and some mobility. It also needs physical room on the handle, which is why players who use it tend to prefer elongated paddles - our elongated versus standard guide covers that shape trade, and it matters more for this than for anything else.

Fixing a grip you cannot hold properly

Three fixes, in the order of cost.

Rewrap it. If the grip is slick, shiny or compressed, nothing else on this page will work. A fresh overgrip costs a couple of dollars and takes three minutes, and it is the single most effective change available to most players. Selkirk publishes a clear how-to covering wrap direction and overlap, and our guide to replacing a grip works through both the overgrip and the full replacement.

Change the texture, not the thickness. If your hand slips, the instinct is to wrap something thick around the handle, which fixes the slipping and creates a size problem. A thin tacky tape or a dry cloth grip changes the friction without changing the circumference. If sweat volume is the real issue, our grips for sweaty hands page sorts the field by whether a grip absorbs moisture or stays tacky, which is the choice that decides whether it works.

Change the geometry. The most interventionist option. Some replacement grips are not round - they are moulded with ridges that index your fingers into position, which gives some players a secure hold at much lower squeeze pressure. That is a genuine help for anyone whose grip pressure is high because of hand strength rather than habit, and it is a real change in feel that not everyone wants.

What none of these fixes is a substitute for: a paddle that is simply too heavy for you. Selkirk's weight guidance frames the trade honestly - heavier paddles are more stable and put more mass behind the ball, lighter ones are quicker and easier to control - and a paddle you have to grip hard to control is a paddle you are fighting rather than holding.