Best racquet sports gifts under $50 in 2026

What fifty dollars buys, and what it does not

Under $50 rules out equipment in every racquet sport, and that is genuinely helpful. Equipment is fitted; consumables are not. The one thing you cannot get wrong is the thing you can afford.

Which sport are they actually playing?

This is the one question worth answering before buying anything, because it is the one mistake that makes a gift useless rather than merely unexciting.

• Overgrips work for all three sports. Buy these if you are not sure.
• String is tennis only. Padel rackets and pickleball paddles have no strings.
• Balls are sport-specific. Padel balls are slightly smaller and less pressurized than tennis balls; pickleball uses a hard perforated plastic ball entirely unlike either.
• Bags work for all three, and a tennis six-pack holds padel rackets comfortably — but that is over budget for this page.

Things to avoid under $50

• A racket, paddle or padel racket. Under $50 you are buying aluminum, wood or a molded plastic core. These are actively worse to learn on than what they already own.
• Shoes. Size, width and surface all have to be right, and $50 does not buy a court shoe.
• A vibration dampener. Strong personal preference, and many players actively dislike them.
• Novelty items. The tennis-themed mug is a well-worn path. They have three.
• Grip size sleeves or lead tape. Genuinely useful, genuinely specific, and not something to guess at.

Making a small gift feel bigger

A twelve-pack of grips and three cans of balls comes to about $45 and looks substantially more like a gift than either does alone. Consumable bundles work well for exactly this reason — the volume does the work that a single expensive item would otherwise do.

If you want to go larger, the next genuinely safe step up is a six-racquet bag at around $65-$119. See gifts for tennis players for the bigger-budget version of this page.