Continental Grip

An all-purpose grip of the racquet handle. It is halfway between the Eastern forehand grip and the backhand grip. It has an advantage over any other grip in that it can be used all the time and for any shot, and many superlative players adopted it exclusively for that reason. An outstanding example was Henri Cochet, one of France’s Four Musketeers, who ended Tilden’s and the United States domination of tennis in 1927. Most good players adopt the Continental for serving, since it helps impart spin, and for playing at the net, where play is so quick back and forth that it’s obviously useful not to have to change one’s grip. In fact, the only real disadvantage to using the Continental grip all the time is that one can’t hit forehand and drives with it with quite the force that one can with the Eastern and backhand grips, respectively.