Hi Guys,
I'm planning to do a series of videos relative to my
project and the experience along the way.
One of the topics on my list includes pressure less balls. So, I'll jump forward and I'll share a few of my thoughts on the topic.
Although I'm inexperienced tennis player, I was hitting for almost three months ONLY with the Tretorn Micro X's. Which by a lot of people considered among the best in its' type.
I've got two boxes of those and I put them to test every day.
They are of good quality and some experienced players as well as few coaches I know agreed that they were the most close-to-real balls they tried.
But, after playing for 3 months in the row with them I had my first match (just about a week ago). Of course I played with normal pressurised, new balls. It was an upsetting experience I should admit. I was miss hitting the ball constantly. For the first thirty minutes I was thinking that I was under the pressure of putting my skills under a test.
But luckily and very frustratingly at the same time it was more of a balls issue. As this type (pressure-less) balls bounce differently, especially in clay courts, I was miss-timing the ball. So I was taking ever slightly the wrong distance of the ball and the hit was never full.
Also and very important to me these balls produce a different sound at impact. I quite I liked this sound as it's a stronger, louder, compared to the other balls. And that produce a hell of a problem at me on my serves. The "lighter" sound of the normal balls made me feel that I wasn't hitting the ball clearly but that wasn't true.
It took me four hours of practice to re-adjust to the normal balls. And the Tretorn Micro X's are history to me. I'm now using the Head ATP balls which are my favourite. I should also mentione that at the first month of using the pressure-less balls, I was playing at least the last 5 to 10 minutes of practice with new pressurised balls and I didn't have such a problem. But after using them for two months straight it was disastrous as described.
Verdict,
Pressure-less balls are in fact way cheaper. As they last at least three times more than the pressurised.
They keep their bounce and felt for a good period of time. But as the time passes we noticed that as much as great the force is at impact the energy absorption of the ball is greater than the pressurised balls. Simply put, that translates to less power output.
As far as arm concerns I should say I didn't have any problems. Although the ball was producing slightly more stress to my arm, wasn't enough to hurt me. Someone with arm issues already might take a notice of that, though.
To me, this "heaviness" was only noticeable when balls were coming to at a certain speed and above. For shorter, lower paced balls wasn't noticeable at all. Not to mention about serves.
If you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them
Cheers,
Stergios
