CONTINENTAL GRIP
Used mainly for volleys, serves, overheads, the backhand slice and defensive strokes. The continental grip can be used for both forehands and backhands, but it’s rarely used anymore for forehands, because it’s poorly suited to hitting topspin. It was a popular grip until the early 1970s, when the US Open and the Australian Open stopped playing on grass and left only Wimbledon to be dominated by the low bounces for which continental grips are best adapted.
Since the racquet face is relatively square on a continental grip, for ground strokes the strike zone is low and to the side of the body. Thats why its helpful for defensive shots, low balls, and wide balls that youre late on.
Advantages:
- Easy to handle low balls, defensive shots, and wide balls that you´re late on
Disadvantages:
-One of the negatives to using this grip for your forehand is that it is very difficult to generate topspin upon the ball. I can only see one professional player playing with this grip and that is John McEnroe, he is playing with the continental grip on both the forehand and the backhand side. Another play is Stefan Edberg as also were using the continental grip on his forehand. Sometimes his hand even went over to the eastern backhand side when he was playing forehands, this is not very rare.
- Lack of consistency is often a problem