A big pet peeve of mine is when I see my own students put on an overgrip and
they don't do it correctly. Something like this where the bottom cap of the
racket is overlapped by the grip and there's gaps in the grip or even worse
I've seen some of my students start the wrong way and tape the grip on the
bottom. I have regripped thousands of racquets if not more and I have my own
little technique that I would like to share with you. So the first thing you're
gonna do is you're gonna remove the plastic part of the grip. Now as obvious
as this seems a lot of players forget about this part and actually leave this
plastic on the grip. So you got to remember to remove the plastic. So every
grip will have an adhesive part you can see here there's an adhesive part of
this overgrip and obviously gonna start with the thin part and we're gonna
simply place the adhesive part on the bottom of the handle and let's use
this little hole on the butt cap as a reference point this hole is there for
you to remove the butt cap if you have something stuck in your frame you can
shake the racket and get it out. So this is our starting point now we're gonna
hold the racket with the non-dominant hand with the thumb extended. I'm gonna
hold the grip with the thumb and the index finger now we're gonna start on
the bottom right along the edge and now we're going to be rolling the grip with
our non-dominant fingers while controlling the grip with the thumb. See
this thumb is gonna be on the grip while the index finger is controlling the
other part and the non-dominant hand just simply rolls the grip while
you're two dominant fingers are controlling the situation. Now you keep
going all the way up until you reach the end. Now one little trick that I can show
you is you can adjust the thickness of the grip. So the tighter you make the
spaces the thicker your overgrip is gonna be and the longer you make the spaces
the thinner your grip is going to be. Obviously, you don't want gaps and going
like this you don't want any gaps but in my case I like the grip to be nice and
thin so I like to go right along the edge. Another thing that's happening with
the modern rackets is that the handles seem to be getting shorter and shorter
which just makes it very difficult for us two-handers. So
in my case I like to go all the way up like this and I use a special little
trick that I want to share with you. So at the end of the grip, I make a small
triangle with the end of the grip like this. You can see there's a small little
triangle right at the end. So once you have this small little triangle you're
gonna actually take tape and you're gonna put it right along this triangle
like this and now you're gonna start rolling the tape in this way. I actually
like using a regular tape rather than the tape
that comes provided with the grip and I go all the way around until the end. Now
the reason why I like using this triangle technique is if you happen to
have a two-handed backhand and if you slide your hand from the ready position
down onto the racket you don't want anything flapping in the way so your
fingers get caught. So I like having this area as smooth as possible and that's
where this triangle technique comes in very handy. Every racket that you buy
will come with an original grip and that is not an over grip and this can be
removed but make sure that when you remove the original grip that you buy a
replacement grip and not an overgrip. A replacement grip is much thicker than an
overgrip. All original grips on all rackets are put on right-handed and this
is something that you have to understand. So if I hold the overgrip in my
dominant hand and I put my non-dominant hand on the bottom of the grip and if I
start rolling and the grip this way I'm gonna be following the original grip and
this is great for right-handers. You can see here that the overgrip is following
it the original grip. Now you can do the opposite, some players prefer
this and you can put a grip on lefty. Maria Sharapova is one player who puts
on her grips left handrd even though she's a right-handed player all you
have to do is switch hands. So now you hold the racket with your dominant hand
that the non-dominant hand will roll the grip now I'm not as good putting grips
on with my left hand it's gonna be a mess but I just want to show you what
happens to the grip when it's put on in this manner. Now see that
the grip is going in the opposite direction you see it's going in the
opposite direction of the original grip and what happens is it becomes a little
bit more rigid when you hold the overgrip in this way and some players prefer
this. I personally don't like it I like the grip to be a little bit smoother but
it's an option for you to consider putting the grip on the lefty way. And
finally I want to share with you guys my personal method or how to optimize a
grip even more. What I do is tape the very bottom of the grip you see how here
how I have taped off the very bottom portion of the grip and now it's made
the grip much bigger but only on the very bottom. Professional players that
use this gripping technique are Yevgeni Kafelnikov and Richard Gasquet. And
this is what the grip looks like if you tape the very bottom of it to. See it
looks like a big bubble right on the bottom of the grip. Now for demonstrative
purposes I made it a little bit extra big Kafelnikov/Gasquet style. These guys
indeed have it this big if not bigger. Personally, this is too big for me I have
it much thinner than this. And I've copied this gripping technique from a
fellow player about 20 years ago and I've never looked back I just love the
way the grip feels when it's taped on the very bottom and what I like about it
is when I grip the racket I have the end piece of the grip inside my hand and
then my little finger is settled right below where the tape is and now because
this part is thicker my hand feels more solid it feels like it doesn't slip and
for me it's a much better feeling than having a thin bottom piece of the grip.
in fact, if I use a racket it doesn't have tape on the bottom of the grip I
cannot play with it because it feels so thin it feels like my hand is going to
slip off the racket. So this is something that you can consider in making your
hand even more stable when you hold the racket. Regrip your rackets as often as
possible so that you can get faster at regripping and therefore can maybe do
it at a changeover during a match. Playing with a fresh grip can actually
make you play a little better. So now I'm going to time myself and see how long it
takes me to regrip a racket. Now one little trick
that you can do if you're playing a match
all that annoying plastic removed off the grip that can save you a lot of time.
So now let's prepare everything and the clock starts right now let's see how
long it takes me to put a new grip on the racket. Now if you ever watch
Richard Gasquet play a match he's probably the fastest regripper I have
ever seen and he regripps his rackets on every single changeover. Now because he
has a one-handed backhand he cuts them off about half way. Another player that
used to do this on every single changeover was Vitas Gerulaitis. So I'm
pretty close to the end here let me do my little triangle at the very end my
tape already prepared and get this tape on
and there's the new grip.
Remember to change your grip very frequently. I personally change grips every set when I
play matches and when I teach I like to change it daily. There's nothing
that feels better than having a fresh grip that's still tacky so I encourage
you to change grips as often as possible. If you have any questions comment in the
section below, don't forget to hit that like button and subscribe if you haven't
already. I'll see you next time