By Stuart Miller
Yellow felt and a rubber core. A tennis ball seems so simple. But reality is more complicated, at least on the pro tours where manufacturers can make balls that fit into a range of specifications. And in recent years, with players forced to adjust to different balls at so many tournaments, they have begun complaining about the consistency and the quality of the balls as never before.
Novak Djokovic spoke out. So did Rafael Nadal. And Taylor Fritz, Daniil Medvedev, Stan Wawrinka and Andrey Rublev. The varying balls not only harmed the quality of play, according to players and coaches, but the athletes blamed them for the increase in shoulder, elbow and, especially, wrist injuries.
“The quality of even the best balls has come down in the last few years,” said Craig Boynton, who coached Hubert Hurkacz. “They should not just be picking the ball that will pay the most money to be associated with a tournament, but what is the actual best ball.”
Lower-quality balls can feel like rocks early in a game then “get fluffed-up like little kittens” after a few games, Boynton said. When that happens, “players trying to muscle the ball more” by swinging with more force to make up for what the ball is lacking can get injured.
But that’s only half the story, Boynton said. Wayne Ferreira, Frances Tiafoe’s former coach, said that even when the balls were high quality, there were too many different ones in play. Players often saw different brands each week.
“Some are heavier and some are lighter, and making that adjustment all the time is difficult,” he said.
The list of unhappy players grew so long and the criticisms so loud that the ATP and WTA felt compelled to respond. Earlier this year, they promised a comprehensive review of the issue.
“It’s natural for the players to be sensitive to the changes because they now have so much feel on their rackets,” said Ross Hutchins, chief sporting officer for the ATP. “This has been a challenge for decades to be honest, but we realized we could do better.”
He said they had made enormous progress. The ATP looked into manufacturing balls itself but instead decided the best solution was to centralize the ball-purchasing process that had long been left to individual tournaments.
They considered having one manufacturer for the entire season, but they instead set a goal of only having one ball — whether Wilson, Penn, Babolat, Dunlop or another — in use for each swing, Hutchins said. He added that a swing could range from a handful of tournaments to as many as 10 in a given region and on a specific surface.
So the year begins with a swing through Australia and New Zealand, followed by ones through the Middle East and North America. All of those tournaments are played outdoors on hard courts, but it is possible that each grouping will use a different ball.
Later in the year there will be one ball for the European clay-court swing, the grass-court swing and so on. The ATP is coordinating with the WTA to use the same balls as much as possible, especially where the men and women are playing in the same location.
“The ATP will do the negotiations and oversee the development of the ball with the manufacturers to get the best balls for each swing,” Hutchins said.
The process began this year, and he said that as each deal ended between individual tournaments and manufacturers, the ATP would fold those tournaments into its centralized process. Five more will be added next year, and by 2026 they will control more than 75% of the tournaments, with 2029 as the target date for “full alignment where we control everything,” he added.
The exception is the Grand Slams, which operate independently of the ATP and WTA and have their own deals with ball manufacturers. “The Slams are a major cog in the wheel of tennis, but we have tons of tournaments around them and can control what we can control,” Hutchins said.
He said the Australian and U.S. Opens and Wimbledon have been good collaborators, so the balls used in the Slams will match those used in the tournaments leading up to them, with only the French Open as a holdout — the ATP is using a Dunlop ball for clay-court season, but the French Open has a deal with Wilson.
“We hit thousands of balls per day, which puts stress on your tendons and muscles, so this change would produce a more consistently high level of play and a better product for the sport and our fans,” said Matthew Ebden, president of the ATP’s player advisory council. (Ebden was ranked No. 1 in doubles this year.)
Ferreira said it would be impossible to account for every variable, including players with differing styles (big server versus an agile defender, say) who want different things from each ball.
“Ultimately, it’s all part of the game, and you have to make some adjustments,” he said. “It won’t be perfect for everybody all the time, so the best the ATP can do is provide consistency.”
Comments