Tennis Shoes

Every player has a different favourite pair of tennis shoes. All the leading brands offer great comfort, fit, technical features and grip. You'll find that some brands and styles suit your feet and your styles of play better. Every year we test dozens of pairs and come up with a shortlist of our favourite tennis trainers. To help you decide which ones are your perfect (tennis) match, we highlight the top benefits of different shoes on our website - for example, tennis shoes that are best for support, are very lightweight or are good for wider feet. You might also want to think about where you play tennis. Some tennis shoes are intended to be used on different surfaces - grass courts, artificial courts or clay courts. Most of our customers choose all court tennis shoes, which give you good all-round performance on every surface. 

If you're trying out tennis for the first time, you'll be fine in general purpose sports trainers. But as for most sports, once you've decided you're ready to commit and raise your game, it's a good idea to invest in some proper tennis footwear. Shoes designed especially for tennis will give you better support, stability and comfort than general purpose trainers while you're playing, because they've been built and test for the job. We recommend that you avoid fashion trainers - they are made for style not function, so they don't usually offer the secure grip you need when moving around a tennis court. Take a look at our range of tennis shoes where you'll find a style to suit your pocket and your level of experience. There are plenty of cool-looking colourways and designs as well. 

Choose a tennis shoe that's comfortable and suitable for the surface you're playing on. All court tennis shoes perform well on a range of surfaces but you can buy specifically designed tennis shoes for grass, clay or artificial courts. Look for good supports and shock absorption for stability and to reduce the risk of strains and twists. Cushioning will keep you comfortable and help you avoid blisters. Grippy soles are essential to stop you from skidding when you're powering around the court and stopping or changing direction fast. 

Are you competing in the British Lawn Tennis Association's Wimbledon Championships at the All England Club? If so, your tennis shoes will need to be mainly white, to comply with the strict rules. (And congratulations on qualifying!) Other tournaments are more relaxes about the colour of your shoes - even in the professional game. For the rest of us, if you're playing in amateur tournaments or just for fitness and fun, your tennis shoes can be any colour you like. 

Good quality tennis shoes have many of the features runners look for - cushioning and support for comfort over long periods of wear. But tennis trainers and tennis shoes are designed specifically for the demands of the tennis game, which means fast change of direction, stopping and starting, jumping and explosive bursts of speed. Leading manufacturers build in technical features that supports the foot and make these movements easier. If you're an occasional jogger, your tennis shoes will do fine for a run, but if you are a regular runner, we recommend choosing some running shoes as well as your trusty tennis trainers. 

For the 2021-22 season, Roger Federer wore his own range of tennis shoes designed by Swiss brand On. Although we don't stock On shoes at pdhsports, we'd love to recommend Roger a pair of K-Swiss tennis shoes that celebrate his national origins just as well, in our view - and they're rather more competitively priced! We do stock ASICS tennis trainers endorsed by Novak Djokovic if you're looking for celebrity footwear inspiration. 

Our tennis experts agree that comfort, stability, grip and supports are the key characteristics of good tennis shoes. We recommend trusted brands like Adidas, Asics, Babolat and K-Swiss, because they're well designed, popular and high quality, so they'll last you many matches. For novice players, try a basic, good value tennis shoe with standard features. More advanced players will want to consider refund tennis shoe features that suit the surface you play on, your style of play and your foot type. Our buying guide to tennis shoes gives you all the details of how to shortlist and choose the ultimate tennis footwear for your needs.