How to select tennis balls and shoes

Tennis Balls

Tennis balls

In every tennis tournament, you’ll catch the players taking a moment to select the balls for the next set. Andy Roddick is known to pick out a few balls, place them on the stringbed of his racket and then select the final ball carefully.

If that doesn’t tell you how easily tennis balls you choose can make or break a serve, win you a point or lose you the game, nothing ever will.

Selecting a tennis ball is, thankfully, easier than selecting a tennis racket. Three simple criterias and you have a pack of tennis balls ready to be shipped home.

Playing Surface

The first way to narrow down your choice is by finding out what surface you play on because tennis balls are designed specifically for different surfaces:

Regular Duty- Clay/Indoor Tennis CourtsExtra Duty- Grass CourtsHigh Altitude- Courts High Above the Sea Level

So that’s the first criteria. The second is the make of the tennis ball. There are two types of tennis balls: pressurized and solid core (non-pressurized) tennis ball.

Playing Level

The centre of a pressurized tennis ball is filled with nitrogen. While that makes for some easy playing due to the lightness of the ball, the air inside the ball will start leaking in about a month, making the ball lose its pressure. That makes pressurized tennis balls easy to play with for beginners but not very durable.

The non-pressurized tennis balls have a solid core, making them slightly heavier. But solid core balls are able to outlast pressurized balls by months and are used in professional tennis so this is the ball to go for when you’re planning on advancing in the sport.

Fuzziness

The last criteria is fuzziness. Yes, you read that right. In fact, most of the times when you see tennis pros taking a moment or two to select the balls for the next set they’re analysing the extent to which the fuzziness has been preserved on the ball. Fuzziness on a ball is a good thing. It creates friction on impact and facilitates topspins and backspins. But often the fuzziness gets dishevelled and that adds weight to the ball, making it slower while travelling through the air. No wonder, Roddick, known for the speediest serves spends so much time picking out tennis balls that minimal fluffiness to their fuzzy covering.

Tennis Shoes

How you move on court while playing tennis is very different than your everyday movements or movement in other sports. Tennis sees a lot of lateral movement as you try to cover the court, many abrupt starts and stops and short sprints- all depending on where the ball is.

All these strange movements have a straining effect on your feet, especially if you wear cross-trainers or any random pair of sports shoes that are not equipped to handle specific foot movements. Tennis shoes are footwear designed to aid you in your lateral movements and quick starts and stops without causing injury to your feet.

Just like running shoes are designed for forward motion, you can’t wear just any shoes on the tennis court which demands movement in all directions. Shoes specially designed for tennis are made sturdier and flat. They have patterns on the sole which are different for each type of playing surface in order to make sure your feet gets maximum protection while also having the freedom to move quickly.

You only need to know your pronation and playing surface and style to find out what kind of tennis shoes work for you.

Playing Surface

Playing Surface makes a big difference on the shoe you need to wear. Hard surfaces like concrete or indoor courts place a different kind of strain on your feet as opposed to soft surfaces, which are more prone to ankle injuries.

On hard surface – the surface is stable so your feet have support. But hard surfaces also mean more wear and tear and that’s why manufacturers design specific shoes for concrete and indoor courts. These shoes are sturdier, far more tougher, resilient and supportive than other tennis shoes. Durability is a big factor in shoes designed for hard courts.

On soft surfaces, like grass and clay, stability and traction are key and this is reflected in the design on the shoes. Shoes made for clay courts feature ridges that are built closer together so that they avoid getting clogged by the clay. Since the surface is more unstable than concrete, the whole idea behind soft court tennis shoes is to ensure you don’t slip and fall.

Playing Style

Since your movement on the court is influenced by the style in which you play, your shoes have to reflect that. For players who play along the back line of the court, most movements are lateral as they move sideways to return a shot. For such baseline players, shoes with greater lateral support and durable soles are designed so that moving sideways becoming easier and non-damaging to the feet.

But for players who focus on serves and volleys and stay closer to the net, shoes with special built-in features are available. Their shoes offer durability and support by en-caging the entire outsole in rubber. Also because they are required so often to slide their back foot on the court during a serve, shoes with reinforced toe or a toecap that is sturdy and a medial arch become essential.