Tennis grip size: how to measure it, and why measuring isn't enough
Updated: 1 hour ago
Grip size is the only setting on a racquet your hand touches continuously, and it is the one chosen with the least method. People take what was on the shelf, or the size of the previous racquet, or the one a shop assistant guessed. This article gives the two measuring methods, their real margin of error, and says where the L0–L5 convention stops being enough.
Where the L0–L5 convention comes from, and what it measures
L0, L1, L2: these marks describe the circumference of the handle — the perimeter of the octagonal section, measured at mid-length, over the original grip. Each step is one eighth of an inch, roughly 3.2 mm of circumference.
L0 corresponds to about 4 inches (roughly 102 mm), and the scale climbs by 3.2 mm per step up to L5. That is all. The convention describes a circumference and nothing else. It says nothing about the shape of the section, the ratio between its sides, or the length of the part you actually hold.
That is useful and incomplete information. Two handles of the same circumference, one more rectangular and one more square, are not held the same way, and grip changes do not happen at the same speed on them.
The two methods you will be offered, and what they are worth
The index finger rule. Take the racquet in a forehand grip. Slide the index finger of your other hand into the space left between your fingertips and the base of your thumb. If it just fits, the size is coherent. If it does not fit, the handle is small. If there is room to spare, it is large.
Hand length. Open your hand, fingers together and extended. Measure from the middle crease of the palm to the tip of the ring finger. The figure you get, in millimetres, gives an order of magnitude directly comparable to the circumferences above.
Both methods work, and neither is precise. The first depends on the grip you happened to adopt during the test — so on the stroke, so on the day. The second ignores the thickness of the hand and the length of the fingers, which vary a great deal at equal palm length.
In practice they place you to within one size. That is enough to eliminate a gross error; it is not enough to decide between two neighbouring sizes. When the two disagree, it is not a measurement fault: it is a sign that your hand does not fall neatly inside the grid.
Too small: grip force rises, and the elbow pays
This is the most common error, and the least visible. A handle that is too small does not feel like a problem. It feels like a manoeuvrable racquet.
What happens is simple. To hold a thin handle without it twisting in the hand on an off-centre impact, you have to squeeze harder. That grip force is produced by the forearm muscles, whose tendons attach at the elbow. The more sustained the contraction, the higher the load is carried.
None of this is inevitable and none of it explains everything, but it is worth checking before the rest, because it is free. It is one of the six things we list in the article on tennis elbow and your racquet, and it is the one most often skipped.
Too large: what you lose at the wrist
The opposite error is rarer and easier to feel.
A handle that is too big limits how far the hand can close. The grip becomes less firm in the fingers and more braced in the palm, and two things degrade: wrist mobility at the end of the stroke, and the speed of the grip change between forehand and backhand. On volleys and on a slice serve, it shows.
A simple, honest rule: when in doubt between two sizes, take the smaller one. You can always add material; you cannot take it away.
What an overgrip fixes, and what it does not
An overgrip adds roughly half a size depending on its thickness, and two layered overgrips add about one. It is the cheapest and fastest correction there is.
What it does not do: it does not change the shape of the section. It thickens it uniformly and slightly rounds the edges, which makes the grip bevels less distinct. If your problem is that you can no longer feel the facets of the handle, stacking overgrips makes it worse rather than better.
It is also worth knowing that a flattened overgrip no longer has the thickness it had. A racquet set to the right size with a fresh overgrip becomes too small again after a few weeks, with nothing else having changed.
European sizes, American sizes
You will meet two notations for the same thing. The European one runs from L0 to L5. The American one gives the circumference directly, in inches.
L0 — 4 inches — 101.6 mm
L1 — 4 1/8 inches — 104.8 mm
L2 — 4 1/4 inches — 108.0 mm
L3 — 4 3/8 inches — 111.1 mm
L4 — 4 1/2 inches — 114.3 mm
L5 — 4 5/8 inches — 117.5 mm
The hand-length method reads on the same scale: a hand measuring 108 mm from the middle crease of the palm to the tip of the ring finger lands on L2. That is not a coincidence — it is how the rule was built, which also explains its margin of error.
Two traps. The first is that some brands number their grips from 1 for what others call L0: a one-step offset, which is enough to make a racquet uncomfortable. Check the figure in inches rather than the letter.
The second is that the measurement applies to the handle with its original grip fitted. A handle stripped bare, or regripped with a thinner leather, no longer has the stated circumference. On a used racquet, measure rather than trust the label.
The shape of the section, and why the bevels matter
The handle is an octagon. Its eight facets are not decorative: they are the reference points that let you change grip without looking at your hand.
Grips are defined on those bevels. For a right-hander, the index knuckle on the second facet gives the continental grip, the third an eastern forehand, the fourth a semi-western; a left-hander reads the same scale mirrored. You do not count facets while playing: you feel them, and it is that sensation that makes the grip change automatic.
Anything that softens the edges softens that reference. A thick overgrip, two layered overgrips, a handle too large for the hand: in all three cases the octagon becomes a cylinder, and the grip change becomes approximate. It is a cost rarely accounted for when a handle is built up.
It is also why two handles of the same circumference are not equivalent. A more pronounced octagon, with a more rectangular ratio between its sides, gives sharper reference points and a more stable orientation in the hand.
Checking yours in three minutes
A simple protocol, done once, at home.
Take the overgrip off and note what is written on the butt: the letter, and the figure in inches if it is there.
Measure the circumference at mid-length with a tailor's tape, over the original grip only. Compare it with the list above.
Do the index finger rule in a forehand grip, then do it again in a backhand grip. If the two do not agree, your hand is between two sizes.
Measure your hand length, from the middle crease of the palm to the tip of the ring finger, and see whether the two methods agree.
Write it all on one line. You will need it next time you buy a racquet, and you will stop guessing.
If the two methods contradict each other, that is not a measurement failure: it is the signal that the grid is not enough for your hand, and it is exactly the case handled in the next section.
When size alone is not enough
This is where the convention stops. A broad short hand, a slim long hand, a thumb that sits high, a marked preference for a very closed grip: none of these is solved by moving one step up or down a circumference scale.
That is why we make custom handles, to your size, and to the length that suits you. They are interchangeable and can be readjusted over time: if your game changes, or if you were one step out, the handle is replaced without touching the frame. The principle and the making of it are set out in the article devoted to the handle.
If you order a racquet from us, handle size and shape are set directly in the configurator.
None of this is essential. For the large majority of players, the right size taken from the grid, with an overgrip renewed when it needs to be, is plenty. We say so because it is true, not despite the fact that we sell something else.
Two ways to get one: the handle alone, which you fit yourself, or fitting at the workshop, handle included. Either way it fits any racquet, not only ours.
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