What the Fuzz Does to a Tennis Ball

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Lincoln Ward. I'm the director of the Austin Tennis Center, here in Austin, Texas. Today, we're going to talk about what the fuzz on a tennis ball does. As you can see, this tennis ball, a little bit fuzzy on the top, over time, your new can of ball will start to develop fuzz. The tennis ball is actually a rubber encased pressurized ball, with a felt cover. That felt helps to grip the tennis, the racquet strings, so that you can modify the type of spin you're putting on the ball. Now, over time, the ball turns from very little fuzz, to a lot of huge fuzz, to these little knotty fuzzing, you can see from this. Now, the fuzz will actually affect the aerodynamics of the ball, so it slows it down in the air, so yes, the felt helps to give you a little more bite on the ball, but over time, it starts to act against what you want, and slows the ball down, so if you're ever watching tennis on TV, and you see the tennis players get three or four balls, and they're looking at them, and they throw a couple of them back, they're looking for the ball with the least amount of fuzz on it, because that's going to go aerodynamically much faster, as they serve it to their opponent. They want every advantage they can take, when they're playing at that level, against those kind of opponents, so they might pull some of the fuzz off, or take a look at it, and figure out which one works better. This one is obviously a little more ratty than this one is, so I would use this one to serve that next point. My name is Lincoln Ward, and that's what the fuzz on your tennis ball is for."