How to Hold a Ping Pong Paddle: Shakehand vs. Penhold

Your grip decides every shot you will ever hit, and switching later is genuinely painful — you’re not adjusting a habit, you’re rebuilding a decade of muscle memory. So it’s worth ten minutes now.

The good news: there are only two real answers, the research says they’re closer than the internet claims, and the choice is mostly about what kind of player you want to be.

The shakehand grip (start here)

Hold the paddle as if you’re shaking someone’s hand. The handle sits in the web between your thumb and index finger, your index finger rests along the bottom edge of the backhand rubber, your thumb rests lightly on the forehand side, and the remaining three fingers wrap the handle without squeezing.

That’s it. It’s called shakehand because the instruction is literally the whole technique — and roughly 90% of players worldwide, including nearly every professional, use it.

Shallow vs deep

Start deep. The stability is worth more than the wrist while you’re still learning where the ball is, and mishits hurt less. Loosen toward shallow as your touch develops — most experienced players end up somewhere in between without ever consciously deciding to.

The penhold grip

Hold the handle like a pen: thumb and index finger wrapped around the front, the other three fingers arranged on the back of the blade. There are two traditions, and they’re genuinely different games:

The RPB deserves emphasis because it changed the story. For decades penhold’s fatal flaw was the backhand — you were essentially playing with one wing. Then Chinese players developed the reverse penhold backhand, striking with the back face of the blade, and suddenly penholders had a genuine two-winged attack. Wang Hao built a career on it. It’s the reason penhold isn’t extinct.

Shakehand vs penhold: what the research actually says

This gets argued endlessly online, usually on vibes. Here’s what’s actually known.

Two of those rows matter more than the rest.

The crossover point: shakehand’s real weakness

This is the thing shakehand players spend their careers managing and almost no beginner guide mentions. With shakehand, there’s a zone around your playing elbow where neither wing works properly — the ball is too close for a forehand and too awkward for a backhand, and you have to decide which compromise to make in a fraction of a second.

That’s why good players aim at the elbow. It’s the highest-percentage target in the sport, and it exists because of the grip almost everyone uses. Penhold, by contrast, has no crossover point — the same face handles everything, so the middle is just another ball. It’s penhold’s genuine structural advantage and it’s rarely stated plainly.

The elite numbers are the argument-ender

In 2017, only two of the world’s top-20 men and none of the top-20 women played penhold. If penhold were equal or better at the highest level, that number would not look like that — the Chinese system in particular would have produced penholders by the dozen, and it hasn’t.

But read it carefully: it means shakehand is better at the frontier, where two-winged looping decides points. It does not mean penhold is bad, and it does not mean you’ll be held back at club level. Plenty of formidable club penholders exist, and they’re horrible to play against precisely because you almost never practise against one.

So which should you choose?

Choose shakehand if: you’re a beginner, you want the widest equipment choice, you want a coach who can actually teach you (most can’t coach penhold), or you have any ambition beyond the local club. This is the honest default and there’s no shame in the default — it’s the default because it works.

Choose penhold if: you’re drawn to close-to-table wrist-driven play, you have access to someone who plays it and can teach you, or you’re already playing it and it feels natural. Don’t switch to penhold from a functioning shakehand out of curiosity — that’s a year of your life.

Does the grip change between shots?

Slightly — and this is where shakehand’s design shows its intelligence.

Unlike badminton or tennis, table tennis doesn’t ask you to change grips wholesale mid-rally; there’s genuinely no time. Instead, the shakehand grip is a compromise position that works for both wings, and you make micro-adjustments within it — a fractional rotation, a shift of thumb pressure — rather than switching.

Notice that most of these are pressure changes rather than position changes. Your thumb and index finger are effectively a steering system — pressing one and relaxing the other tilts the blade a degree or two without moving your hand at all. That’s the actual skill hiding inside ‘hold it loose’: looseness is what makes the steering possible.

Penholders do this differently and more dramatically — those three back fingers give them genuine blade control, which is where that 270° of wrist range comes from and why their serves are so hard to read.

The specialist grips you’ll occasionally meet

If you meet a Seemiller player at your club, expect to lose the first time. Unfamiliarity is a weapon, and their blocking angles come from somewhere your instincts don’t expect. It’s also why they keep playing it.

Grip pressure: how tight?

Loose enough that someone could pull the paddle out of your hand with a firm tug. That’s the resting pressure, for the whole rally.

At contact, squeeze — a brief pulse — then relax immediately. Think of it as a heartbeat, not a hold. That pulse transfers your accumulated racket speed into the ball; the relaxation on either side is what let you generate the speed in the first place.

A death grip does three bad things at once: it slows your racket head (a tense arm is a slow arm), it kills the touch you need for short play, and it telegraphs tension into every shot. And it gets worse under pressure — which is exactly when you need touch most. If your forearm aches after a session, this is why, not your fitness.

The five grip mistakes

The first one is the most common and the most invisible. Your index finger wants to creep up onto the rubber face because it feels like control. What it actually does is occupy the exact spot your backhand needs to contact the ball, so your backhand quietly loses its middle. Check it between points for a week and you’ll be surprised how often it has migrated.

Once your grip is set

The grip is the foundation and it stops being interesting quite quickly, which is a good sign. Next steps in order: basic strokes and footwork, then learning to spin the ball, then the forehand loop — the stroke your grip exists to enable.

On equipment: if you’re buying your first paddle, our beginner paddle guide covers control-first options, or try the paddle selector quiz for a personalised pick. And if you’re going penhold, buy a penhold blade — the handle is short for a reason, and a shakehand blade held penhold-style is genuinely unpleasant.

Frequently asked questions

Should my index finger point up the paddle face?

No — that’s a common beginner drift and it blocks your backhand contact zone. It rests along the bottom edge of the backhand rubber, not on the face.

Is penhold worse than shakehand?

At elite level, the numbers say shakehand wins — only 2 of the top-20 men played penhold in 2017. At club level, no. Penhold has genuine advantages (270° of wrist range, no crossover point) and penholders are unpleasant to face precisely because you never practise against one.

Can I switch from shakehand to penhold?

You can, and it will cost you roughly a year. Don’t do it out of curiosity — only if you’ve played penhold, it felt natural, and you have someone to teach you.

How tight should I hold the paddle?

Loose — someone should be able to pull it from your hand. Squeeze only at contact, then relax. A pulse, not a clamp.

What is the crossover point?

The zone around your playing elbow where neither forehand nor backhand works cleanly. It’s shakehand’s structural weakness, it’s why good players aim there, and penhold doesn’t have it.

Do professionals use special grips?

Overwhelmingly standard shakehand. The exceptions — Seemiller, V-grip — are curiosities. The world’s best players hold the paddle the way your first coach told you to.

Does grip affect which paddle I should buy?

Yes, significantly. Penhold blades have short, distinctly shaped handles and are sold as penhold-specific — a shakehand blade held penhold-style is genuinely uncomfortable and limits the wrist range that makes penhold worth playing. Shakehand handles come in flared, straight and anatomic shapes, which is mostly personal preference: flared is the common default and helps prevent the paddle sliding out of a loose grip.

My hand hurts after playing — is my grip wrong?

Almost certainly you’re squeezing throughout the rally rather than pulsing at contact. It’s the most common cause of forearm ache and it gets worse under pressure, exactly when you need touch. Consciously relax your hand between points for a few sessions and it usually resolves without any change to your actual grip position.

Grip Pressure, and Why It Matters More Than Grip Style

Players spend a great deal of thought on which grip to use and almost none on how hard to hold the bat, which is backwards. Grip pressure affects nearly every shot, and excessive pressure is one of the most common faults in recreational play.

A tight grip locks the wrist, and a locked wrist cannot produce the brushing acceleration that generates spin. It also transmits less feel, which makes touch shots near the net markedly harder, and it tires the forearm noticeably faster across a session.

The working guidance is to hold firmly enough that the bat does not move in your hand on contact, and no firmer. Pressure should also vary by shot: relatively relaxed for touch and short play, firmer at the moment of contact on a drive or smash, then relaxed again. Holding maximum pressure continuously is both slower and more tiring than tightening only when needed.

A quick self-check: if your forearm aches after a session and your touch shots keep sitting up, grip pressure is a likelier cause than anything to do with your grip style or your equipment.

Common Grip Faults Worth Correcting Early

• Index finger too far up the backhand side. Feels secure but restricts backhand stroke range and pushes the bat angle closed.
• Thumb pressed hard against the blade. A common source of tension, and it reduces wrist mobility for exactly the shots that need it.
• Gripping too far down the handle, which reduces control, or too far up onto the blade, which restricts wrist action.
• Changing grip between forehand and backhand. Some small adjustment is normal and some players do it deliberately, but a large mid-rally regrip is slow and is usually a sign the base grip is not comfortable for both wings.

Grip faults are worth fixing early because they become deeply automatic. A player who has held the bat the same way for years will find a correction feels wrong for weeks even when it is clearly better, which is not a reason to avoid the change but is a reason to make it during a quiet period rather than before a competition.

If a change genuinely does not settle after a sustained period of practice, it is legitimate to conclude the original grip suited you and revert. Grip is more individual than most technical elements, and comfort that lasts matters more than conforming to a textbook position.

Changing Grip: When It Is Worth It

Players sometimes conclude that their whole grip style is wrong and consider switching, usually between shakehand and penhold or between penhold variants. That is a much larger undertaking than adjusting finger position, and it is worth being clear-eyed about.

A full grip change resets a substantial part of your technique. Every stroke has been calibrated to the old grip, and rebuilding takes months rather than weeks. Players who switch typically get worse before they get better, and the trough is deep enough that many abandon the change halfway, which leaves them worse off than either committing or never starting.

• Worth considering if your current grip has a structural limitation you keep hitting, such as a backhand that cannot be developed further from your hand position, and you have a coach guiding the change.
• Not worth it if you are switching because a professional you admire uses something different, or because progress has stalled for reasons that are probably about practice rather than grip.
• Timing matters. If you do it, do it at the start of a quiet period, not mid-season.

For the large majority of players the productive answer is not changing grip style at all, but correcting the finger position and pressure faults above within their existing grip. Those changes take days rather than months and address most of what people hope a grip change will fix.

Grip for Different Playing Situations

One further point that rarely appears in grip guides: the appropriate grip is not identical across every shot, and small deliberate adjustments are normal rather than a fault.

Most players use a marginally different hand position for serving than for rallying, typically a slightly looser grip that frees the wrist for the fine brushing contact a spin serve needs. That is a deliberate adjustment made before the point starts, with time to reset afterwards, and it is quite different from regripping mid-rally.

Players using two different rubber surfaces also twiddle the bat deliberately during play, which requires a grip loose enough to allow rotation. That is one of the clearest cases where a straight handle suits a player better than a flared one, since a flared handle actively resists the rotation.

The distinction worth holding onto is between planned adjustments, which are fine, and unplanned drift, which is not. If your grip has changed by the end of a rally without you deciding to change it, that is the fault worth correcting rather than the deliberate variations described here.

Grip and the Rest of Your Setup

Grip interacts with equipment more than most players expect, and a grip that feels wrong is occasionally an equipment problem wearing a technique disguise.

Handle shape is the obvious one. A flared handle locks the hand into a consistent position, which suits players who want security; a straight handle allows the hand to move, which suits players who rotate the bat deliberately. A player fighting their handle shape will keep finding their grip drifting no matter how often they correct it.

Bat weight matters too. A finished bat that is heavy for you encourages a tighter grip simply to control it, which then causes the pressure problems described above. If your grip tightens involuntarily as a session goes on, the weight of the setup is worth examining alongside the grip itself.

Our blade guides cover handle shapes and finished-bat weight in more detail. The general point is that grip, handle and weight are one system, and persistent grip discomfort is worth checking against the equipment before assuming the fault is entirely in your hand.

Benjamin Fink

Benjamin Fink writes and edits the table tennis equipment guides on PingPongReviewed, covering paddles, tables, robots, and training gear.