I do not like green balls and ham...

[time_fly]

My son is 12 and a half. He's a very good baseball player but is casual about tennis. For the past few years he has done some tennis camps or clinics over the summer and during the indoor winter months, but he doesn't take privates or train seriously like he does for baseball. He has the tools to play out points but his technique and strategy are unrefined compared to the kids who focus on tennis as a main sport. I'm fine with that; I just want him to have some exposure to this "life sport."

I'd like to have him start using yellow balls. He has no trouble getting to balls and squaring them up. And selfishly it would be a lot easier for me to hit with him if we used regular balls.

The pros at my club want to keep him at the green ball level. They think the ball colors are related to tennis skill and want him to keep playing slow balls until his stroke technique and strategy are better. They would like to see the junior equivalent of basic "3.5" level tennis before approving yellow balls. They now give a test where you have to sustain a 20-stroke rally with classic topspin ground strokes, hit volleys, serves, and overheads to targets before "approving a higher level ball."

Bottom line: I see the ball colors as relating to physical abilities and I think he is plenty ready to track and hit a yellow ball. They see the appropriate color relating to tennis skill level, so unless he coughs up for private lessons and more clinics he might have to use a dead flat ball until age 30 I guess? I want to get the TT opinion before I go aggro on these guys.

 

[Deleted member 23235]

My son is 12 and a half. He's a very good baseball player but is casual about tennis. For the past few years he has done some tennis camps or clinics over the summer and during the indoor winter months, but he doesn't take privates or train seriously like he does for baseball. He has the tools to play out points but his technique and strategy are unrefined compared to the kids who focus on tennis as a main sport. I'm fine with that; I just want him to have some exposure to this "life sport."

I'd like to have him start using yellow balls. He has no trouble getting to balls and squaring them up. And selfishly it would be a lot easier for me to hit with him if we used regular balls.

The pros at my club want to keep him at the green ball level. They think the ball colors are related to tennis skill and want him to keep playing slow balls until his stroke technique and strategy are better. They would like to see the junior equivalent of basic "3.5" level tennis before approving yellow balls. They now give a test where you have to sustain a 20-stroke rally with classic topspin ground strokes, hit volleys, serves, and overheads to targets before "approving a higher level ball."

Bottom line: I see the ball colors as relating to physical abilities and I think he is plenty ready to track and hit a yellow ball. They see the appropriate color relating to tennis skill level, so unless he coughs up for private lessons and more clinics he might have to use a dead flat ball until age 30 I guess? I want to get the TT opinion before I go aggro on these guys.

i agree with the use of flat balls (red, orange, green, etc,...)

he will most likely develop his strokes faster with green balls.

you could use normal balls (generations of kids have), be if he starts playing with folks who hit hard, he might start developing bad habits to compensate for his lack of technique... but then you might have to hand feed balls a lot before he rallies.

common issue with using yellow balls too soon, is that they bounce too high,... so you start gravitating to an extreme grip to compensate (like i did)... whereas better kids have the timing and technique to take moonballs out of the air or on the rise

honestly i think adults at 3.5 should use green balls (and maybe use green balls for their backhand )

20 ball rally on bh/fh seems like a decent goal.

alternatively you could play on clay to slow things down.

my wife still loves rallying (against me) with red balls... seems like not matter how hard i hit it, she can still get it back (not the same with yellow balls)

 

[Mack-2]

i agree with the use of flat balls (red, orange, green, etc,...)

he will most likely develop his strokes faster with green balls.

you could use normal balls (generations of kids have), be if he starts playing with folks who hit hard, he might start developing bad habits to compensate for his lack of technique... but then you might have to hand feed balls a lot before he rallies.

common issue with using yellow balls too soon, is that they bounce too high,... so you start gravitating to an extreme grip to compensate (like i did)... whereas better kids have the timing and technique to take moonballs out of the air or on the rise

honestly i think adults at 3.5 should use green balls (and maybe use green balls for their backhand )

20 ball rally on bh/fh seems like a decent goal.

alternatively you could play on clay to slow things down.

my wife still loves rallying (against me) with red balls... seems like not matter how hard i hit it, she can still get it back (not the same with yellow balls)

Question for you. How come when red/orange/green didn't exist, and kids had to play and develop with a yellow ball, we saw a lot of pros using less extreme grips?


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[time_fly]

Meh. He can hit a 60+ mph fast ball with a 22oz bat. I think he can catch up to a rec level ground stroke even with a yellow ball. His problem is that he isn't into this whole topspin thing ... he wants to take a long, flat swing at everything. Looks like a "WTA forehand" sort of.

 

[Fxanimator1]

We use normal tennis balls with our son, but I take an awl and pop them so they're pressureless. Basicslly the same as green dot, but he's developed a negative attitude toward the "lesser" green dot ones, so I accommodate his mentality by doing this.

 

[r2473]

If the 20 stroke rally was a rule for all ages, most rec adults would still be playing green balls

 

[Deleted member 23235]

Question for you. How come when red/orange/green didn't exist, and kids had to play and develop with a yellow ball, we saw a lot of pros using less extreme grips?


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can't speak from experience, but reading agassi book, it was a lot of time on the "dragon" on high

the coaching was also different, racquet were different (smaller), string, etc,...

 

[Deleted member 23235]

Meh. He can hit a 60+ mph fast ball with a 22oz bat. I think he can catch up to a rec level ground stroke even with a yellow ball. His problem is that he isn't into this whole topspin thing ... he wants to take a long, flat swing at everything. Looks like a "WTA forehand" sort of.

yeah, definitely has nothing to do with raw physical ability (e.g. reaction time),...

but then what's stopping him from an "easy" 20 ball rally with green balls (which is a lot easier than with new yellow balls.

venus and serena mentioned they played with a lot of dead balls growing up... so maybe that's the alternative.

 

[NLBwell]

Yes, you can just use old dead yellow balls. Kids have always used these - either from ball baskets or from the old balls their parents already used. If he's almost 13, the height of the bounce shouldn't be a problem. That's a problem when they are younger and shorter.