Preserving Felt On Tennis Balls? Presurrize After Maintaining Felt Health?

[WilsonPlayer101]

There are numerous discussions here about recharging/pressurizing tennis balls and most agree that if the felt wears away or gets matted down that pressurizing tennis balls won't be very effective. I thought this topic deserved it's on discussion rather than asking this in one of the other discussions since maybe not everyone follows every discussion on pressurizing balls.

In order to keep the health of your ball's felt up how about after playing why not try to preserve the felt? How about washing your balls after playing. Maybe get a brush and wet the brush with a solution of water and soap? Brush and scrub your balls to get them clean and to sort of get the felt to stay fuzzy rather than it get matted down after game play as it does. Leave your balls in the sun and after they dry out they should stay more fuzzy than matted down then put in your ball pressurizer. Balls that are pressurized are only good as long as you have healthy felt. Without healthy felt even with balls pumped up in the pressurizer they may not bounce so great. I understand balls felt come off and loose felt over time but if you buy balls that have healthy and more felt than low priced balls, then scrub them to sort of keep them from matting down and then pressurize them you may have better more bouncier balls than if you didn't go thru these extra steps.

 

[Injured Again]

I don't think that will help the felt last longer. The felt physically comes off the ball when hit by the strings or when it hits the ground, and it's that felt loss which causes the ball to eventually fly through the air differently than a new ball.

My experience is that if you're going to play with a ball multiple times using a pressurizer, it's better to use a regular duty ball. The heavy duty balls fluff up too much the second and third sessions and really change the way you have to swing at them. The regular duty balls seem to have a more consistent fluffiness throughout their lives. So even though a regular duty ball is pretty much worn out after three sessions, by then the rubber core is also so degraded that no amount of repressurization can make them closely mimic a new ball.

 

[antony]

hit your balls softer

 

[JackSockIsTheBest]

hit your balls softer

i would think drop shotting like Gaston would do the trick

 

[WilsonPlayer101]

I don't think that will help the felt last longer. The felt physically comes off the ball when hit by the strings or when it hits the ground, and it's that felt loss which causes the ball to eventually fly through the air differently than a new ball.

My experience is that if you're going to play with a ball multiple times using a pressurizer, it's better to use a regular duty ball. The heavy duty balls fluff up too much the second and third sessions and really change the way you have to swing at them. The regular duty balls seem to have a more consistent fluffiness throughout their lives. So even though a regular duty ball is pretty much worn out after three sessions, by then the rubber core is also so degraded that no amount of repressurization can make them closely mimic a new ball.

I agree and probably will open a new can after using them three times. Use one when the can is opened, then use 2 and 3 after they are pressurized. If I was doing this for teaching or a ball machine I would probably use them more than just 3 times.