“The depressing thing about tennis is, no matter how good I get, I’ll never be as good as a wall.” ~ Mitch Hedberg
This collage was published by Tennis Competitors of Dallas, in a story about rain delays and flooded tennis courts.
Tennis balls drenched to the rubber reek of nostalgia …
from my days of mopping up spring courts with squeegees, just to get in a few minutes of practice before the next downpour. Those were the days of wood racquets — Dunlop, Slazenger, Spalding, Wilson — my first one, a Billy Jean King autograph model, now a vintage style on eBay and Etsy.
Jimmy Connors used a steel Wilson T2000, but on our home court, the Prince over-sized aluminum racquet was just making the scene. Playing with a Prince felt like a cheat, with its monstrous sweet spot — especially since the only guy we knew who used a Prince was a man known as The Turtle … a little slow on the foot, a lot prickly, and way too interested in us teenage girls. We avoided eye contact with the Turtle whenever we followed him on the court. That way, all trouble was averted.
Years later, living on the urban heat island of Los Angeles …
I stopped thinking about tennis in the rain. I stopped thinking about tennis at all …
except in the winter, in the shade, at dawn or at night. It wasn’t until we were back in Northern California, roaming the Berkeley hills, that the scent of rainwater evaporating off a tennis court recaptured my imagination. With a Lumix point-and-shoot in pocket, and nothing in mind, Hugh and I found a couple of soaked tennis balls sitting on the Rose Garden courts. We set them in poses and he played prop master for my camera, tossing them in puddles for effect. Two reanimated tennis balls later — I had this gallery.
These are the times you wish you’d brought your ‘other’ camera, to have more control over the outcome. But one of my favorite projects is challenging the limits of my gear, whatever happens to be in my hand. These snapshots were all shot in automatic mode on the old Lumix TZ5.
RAIN GAME
© Ingrid Taylar
Rubber + Adhesive + Felt + 12psi = this gallery
[click for larger photo]
Tennis Ball Trivia:
- The International Tennis Federation approves all tournament tennis balls, using precise measures of diameter and mass. Here’s an overview of the process.
- This is what happens when you’re shot at close range by a tennis ball cannon popping balls at 45mph: 45mph Tennis Balls
- There are rules about how high a ball should bounce, the same rules as originally set in 1925. A ball is dropped from 100 inches in height, with the ideal rebound coming back up at between 53 and 58 inches (ITF)
- Tennis balls pollute since they’re made from materials that don’t easily biodegrade. There are movements afoot to increase recycling of tennis balls. The company Rebounces specializes in recharging dead tennis balls.
- Some tennis balls from Wimbledon are donated to a wildlife trust to provide shelter for harvest mice. You have to click on that article to see a harvest mouse in his tennis ball house.
- Balls at Wimbledon are kept at 68 degrees F for optimal condition and performance.
- Re-used tennis balls have various incarnations: tennis ball bench and a scuff mark remover.
- From Life Hackery: 50 great things you never knew you could do with tennis balls.