Pickleball Grips Explained: Continental, Eastern and Western

Ask three coaches which grip you should use and you may get three answers. That is not evasion - it reflects a real, public split in pickleball coaching. Pickleball.com's grip guide, published in August 2025, describes the continental as the grip most pros use. Third Shot Sports, a coaching site run by Mark Renneson, published a piece titled "Death of the Continental Grip" arguing the opposite for everyday players. Before picking a side, it helps to know what the grips actually are.

The essentials: Grips are named by where your index knuckle sits on the handle's bevels. Continental is the neutral hammer hold, eastern is the handshake most beginners find naturally, and western rotates further for topspin. Each trades spin, power and touch differently, and honest coaching sources disagree about which trade is worth making.

The continental grip

Pickleball.com describes the continental as placing your index knuckle on the second bevel of the handle - the way you would hold a hammer or shake hands with the paddle face-on. Third Shot Sports defines it slightly differently, by the V between thumb and index finger sitting on top of the handle, and notes that many people confuse it with a handshake grip. Either way, the idea is a neutral hand position, not rotated toward forehand or backhand.

The case for it, per pickleball.com: quick transitions. At the kitchen line, where a ball can arrive at your forehand hip and then your backhand shoulder a half-second later, a neutral grip lets you take both without changing your hand. That is why their guide says most pros use it. The cost, which both sources agree on, is topspin: a neutral-to-open paddle face does not naturally promote the low-to-high brushing path that topspin needs.

The eastern grip

The eastern is what happens when you hand a paddle to someone who has never played. Third Shot Sports describes the experiment: give an average person a few hits and they will almost always put their hand behind the handle on the forehand - palm toward the ball - because it is the strongest, most natural hitting position. Pickleball.com calls it the "shake hands with the paddle" grip, with the index knuckle on the third bevel, and recommends it for beginners precisely because it is comfortable.

The weakness shows up on the backhand. Both sources make the same point: with an eastern forehand grip, the hand ends up in front of the handle on backhands, a weak position that tends to open the paddle face and float the ball. Third Shot Sports adds an injury note, arguing that muscling one-handed backhands from that weak position strains the wrist and shoulder.

The western grip

Rotate the hand further around the handle - pickleball.com describes it as roughly 90 degrees from eastern - and you reach the western grip, the topspin specialist. It makes the upward swing path easy, which is why their guide notes some pros switch to it mid-rally for specific shots like backhand topspin drives. The trade is touch: dinks and short volleys suffer, and pickleball.com cautions that a grip borrowed from tennis does not automatically fit a game built on soft hands at the net.

The actual argument

Here is where the sources genuinely conflict, and it is worth hearing both. Third Shot Sports' case against the continental, made in January 2023, is evolutionary: the modern game rewards topspin forehand volleys at the net, the continental's naturally open face fights that shot, and most recreational players have none of the tennis muscle memory that once made the continental comfortable. Their recommendation is to let players keep the eastern they already like on the forehand and solve the backhand differently - quick grip switches, or a two-handed backhand, which they point out is common in the pro game because the second hand does the heavy lifting.

Pickleball.com's 2025 guide takes the more traditional line: continental as the default for its transition speed, with the acknowledgement that many pros switch grips shot to shot. Read together, the two sources actually agree on the mechanics - every grip has a cost - and disagree mainly on which cost a recreational player should accept.

Choosing for your own game

The practical synthesis looks like this. If you are new, do not fight your instincts: the eastern grip you naturally grab is a legitimate starting point, endorsed by both a commercial guide and a coaching school that built a whole article against orthodoxy. If you play mostly soft game at the kitchen line and your backhand volley feels cramped, the continental's neutrality is worth a two-week trial. And if you already switch grips for specific shots - continental to slice a return, more rotation for a topspin drive - you are doing what pickleball.com describes pros doing, not breaking a rule.

One caution applies whichever side of the argument you land on: grip changes fail when they are made mid-season in an afternoon. Both sources describe trade-offs that only resolve with repetition. Pick the change, drill it against a wall or a patient partner for a few weeks, and judge it then - not after one bad evening at open play.

Sources

• Pickleball.com - A Closer Look at Pickleball Grip Styles
• Third Shot Sports - Death of the Continental Grip

Sources checked 24 Oct 2026. Header image is illustrative, not a photo of the events described.