Choosing Tennis Balls: A Ritual Built on Science and Superstition

[steven johnson]

Aerodynamics and ritual meet when tennis players select their balls.

Before every point at the United States Open, the server will turn to a ball person and request a ball. Or two. Or three, maybe four. The server will then examine them intently or just knock the extras back with barely a glance.

It is a long-held tennis ritual, the choosing of the balls, a process built at least as much in superstition as in science. Many players acknowledge that it probably does not make much of a difference which ball they choose.

Players generally look for the newest, least-fluffed balls - the ones whose fuzzy felt covering is the least disheveled - of the six in use during a match. The perception is that the felt starts to fluff after a few hard whacks, and a fluffed ball will be "heavier," slowed by drag as it travels through the air.

Some players have strong superstitions about certain balls. After a winning point, the former player Conchita Martínez would sometimes ask for the same ball back. It became so exasperating that one opponent, Patty Schnyder, once tucked the ball away to hide it. Similarly, Goran Ivanisevic usually wanted the ball back after an ace.



Choosing Tennis Balls: A Ritual Built on Science and Superstition

[joeybee12]

1. I forget how frequently they change the balls entirely...for some reason

I'm thinking as often as 3-4 games, so the amount of play each ball gets is negligible to make one better than the other...visually some look different, but performance is essentially the same.