A ball machine is a great investment in your training and we think it’s just as important to choose the best tennis balls to optimise its performance and yours. There are two main types of tennis balls: pressureless and pressurised.
Pressureless Tennis Balls
When it comes to selecting the ideal tennis balls for your ball machine, our recommendation is often pressureless balls for their consistency and lifespan. Pressureless tennis balls have uniform and long lasting bounce and performance. They work perfectly with a ball machine and perform consistently time and time again.
Pressureless balls can last years, meaning their lifetime cost is significantly cheaper than regular pressurised balls. They do lose their felt over time and will eventually need to be replaced. The rate of wear and tear is influenced by how often you play, how many balls you use and which surface you play on. For example, if you have 75 tennis balls, they will only last half as long as 150 tennis balls, as each ball will be used twice as often. Balls being used on a hard court are likely to lose their felt quicker than on a synthetic grass court. On average, we estimate 150 pressureless balls should last approximately 2 years.
The downside of pressureless balls is that they don’t feel identical to a pressurised ball, the feel is subtly different. They can sometimes feel a little harder and can make a slightly different sound on impact.
The cost, consistency, longevity and suitability with a ball machine often outweigh the subtle differences in feel. There are many pressureless tennis balls on the market to choose from, we’re proud of our Spinfire Touch balls, which rank as one of the softest and closest alternatives to pressurised balls.
Pressurised Tennis Balls
Alternatively, you can use pressurised tennis balls. These balls are synonymous with standard match play and are the choice for ATP and WTA tournaments, setting the gold standard in professional tennis.
They’re sold in pressurised tins or tubes surrounded by 14 PSI pressure for match perfect performance straight out of the tin. However, once they are taken out of their container they start to lose pressure. Combined with using them in a ball machine which squeezes them more than normal, their pressure is lost more quickly. The balls then become quite flat and difficult to use in your machine, which can cause shots to become inconsistent and ball jams to occur.
Although pressurised balls are cheaper to purchase up front, they become more costly over time unless you use a pressuriser. If you’d prefer using pressurised balls with your ball machine, we recommend using a large pressuriser to store your balls after each session to keep them in perfect condition and performing at their best. Products like the Head X100 Basket and the Pascal Box Pro.
So which tennis ball should you use with your ball machine?
It’s really up to you and how you like to train! We would recommend pressureless balls for use in a ball machine to most of our customers, however you might like to train with the professional standard pressurised balls and are happy to invest in a pressuriser for storage. Whichever ball you choose, our Spinfire machines will be the ultimate training partner on the court!
How should I store and carry my tennis balls?
Once you’ve decided on the right tennis balls for you, it’s time to get out on the court! We recommend our Spinfire Ball Carry Bag to hold your 150 tennis balls ready for a day of training with your Spinfire Pro 2 Ball Machine.