BallMachineForTennis.com

It's an important consideration for your tennis ball machine - the humble tennis ball. As you'll need at least 100 - 300+ balls to fully load your ball machine's hopper, you'll want to ensure value for money and that your tennis machine balls will perform properly and last a good time.

You can use 'ordinary' pressurized tennis balls in your tennis ball machine, but it's best to use tennis machine balls designed and toughened for the extra rigors of having to pass through the whirling wheels of it's firing mechanism.

If you're an occasional tennis player, you'll be better advised to use pressureless balls in practice anyway, which will remain in pristine condition, as your pressurized balls gradually lose their firmness over time, even without use.

The trouble with inflated tennis balls is that they slowly deflate over time, which tends to happen even quicker when forced between the rapidly rotating rollers that transfer speed and spin to the ball in the ball machine. The process of spinning the ball in particular creates increased forces on the tennis ball, as an imbalance of speed in the opposing firing wheels causes the ball to spin, but scuffs it at the same time.

tennis ball machine

Tennis ball technology has advanced with increasing pace lately, with the best pressureless tennis balls now able to offer performance similar to the best in 'normal' tennis balls. Infact they can even have the same 'feel' as a pressurized tennis ball, on contact with the racquet, though some experience a heavier sensation with an economy pressureless ball, especially when it's miss-hit.

These balls have millions of micro-cavities that make the structure of the ball much more durable and long-lasting - great for practice balls and for tennis ball machines, and for avoiding prematurely 'dead' balls, common in the pressurized variety.

Predictability of bounce is important for tennis students to instill confidence in their shotmaking and to maximize the benefits of shot repetition. Unfortunately, slightly deflated traditional balls will perform erratically when ejected from a tennis machine, unlike the pinpoint accuracy in flight and bounce, that can be achieved from pressureless tennis balls.

Also, pressurized balls can expand and contract with changes in altitude and temperature and will perform differently when fed through a ball machine in say, Denver than in Houston.

If you've just spent good money on a Ball Machine for Tennis, you'll probably not want to spend too much more on tennis balls, which could easily happen as ball machines tend to hold alot of balls!

If you don't mind an occasional irregular bounce, or you've bought your ball machine to just start learning the basics, you might like to initially fill the hopper with economy balls, and replace gradually over the months and years, so the balls improve with your game.

Some players actually enjoy a bit more variability in their ball machine deliveries and will intersperse some older or pressurized balls into the hopper to challenge their reaction speeds to any unpredictable deliveries.