Pressureless balls for a ball machine for a serious 11-year-old player

[Sampras_Fan_71]

I purchased a Silent Partner Edge Lite-R ball machine recently, with the primary motivation to feed balls to my 11-old-year son. Some background on my son -- I would consider him a fairly advanced player, he hits the ball quite hard off both sides and very much hits thru the court with fairly low net clearance, and practices several days a week. He plays multifilament strings and generally breaks a string about once every 6 weeks. So he's not going to be bunting the ball around when he's hitting off the machine. He'll be putting the normal "tennis stresses" that good players put on their arm / shoulder.

My concerns as we begin incorporating the ball machine into his practice sessions are as follows:

• potential injury to his arm / shoulder if we use pressureless balls
• how close to the playability of a pressurized ball IS a pressureless ball, specifically for hitting groundstrokes from rally pace to winner pace?
• making sure we are using balls that play like a "fairly new" ball (I think it's a huge waste of time hit large numbers of groundstrokes using older, dead balls)

Ideally, I'd like my 11-year-old to be able to use the machine as much as he likes at fairly high speed feeding -- say for 500-1000 groundstrokes in a practice session, a few times per week -- and not have to worry about arm and shoulder injuries due to pressureless balls. And from what I've read about pressureless balls, the cost over time appears to be so much cheaper as (people claim) they maintain their bounce for up to six months. So from a financial standpoint, that longevity is appealing -- but only if the pressureless ball reacts "fairly similarly" to a pressurized ball. It's not so important to me that the pressureless ball "feels" similar to a pressurized ball. What I care much more about is the flight of the ball when struck -- does it land on the court very close to where a pressurized ball would land? Does it arc similarly to a pressurized ball (similar amount of net clearance)?

I'd love to hear feedback from anyone who's had experience with the above.

Thanks much ahead of time!

 

[jayvee]

Always hard to read posts like this.

 

[dak95_00]

Just buy pressurized balls and https://rebounces.com/

 

[dak95_00]

These posts are just plain simple in logic. A ball machine is used to groove strokes. The balls used just need to be consistent. Pressureless balls are typically more consistent regardless of brand and when purchased as a lot together.

NO BALL or BALL MACHINE will ever simulate perfectly conditions of a match BECAUSE no two opponents will play the same nor will tournaments be using the same ball at each event. Most events will use cheap pressurized balls while others might use premium. Regardless, they won’t feel the same as the other pressurized balls the same as pressureless won’t feel like pressurized no matter how much you spend.

Next you will say you’re worried about shoulder or elbow injuries yet you’ll be using old and dead poly strings. Have a practice racquet with softer strings. Or restring the racquets often and as much as once per week; especially, if he’ll be hitting 1500-3000 balls per week.

 

[Hagberg]

I have tested two types of balls extensively in my ball machine. I can have 200 balls in the hopper so each ball is hit 4- 5 times during a session, which means they will not be worn out in a long time. When using pressurized balls, they will lose pressure long before the felt is worn out. I would need a re-pressurizer to be able to use such balls. The club where I play has a big ball machine and they fill it with balls retired from their organized training. This means there is a variety of balls of different brands and ages. Bounces and trajectories are all over the place and very inconsistent. If you want a bit of randomness to the feeds, this can be seen as an advantage. The balls become very soft and are between green-dot and normal balls in behavior.

So, I have bought a lot of pressure-less practice balls (TennisPoint brand) for my machine. I buy three 72-packs at a time and fill the hopper. They are used until they are pretty worn down. They bounce about the same all the time but fly faster when the fuzz wears off. It doesn't matter much for a ball machine because one can adjust the spin, speed and trajectory to compensate. These balls are not as comfortable when used for hitting against a human player.

I have also tested the Wilson Trinity balls a lot in the machine. They are pressurized and have nice comfort but the pressure never drops and the bounce never changes. These can sit indefinitely in the machine until the felt wears out. They can also be used like any normal ball for human hitting sessions.

For your use case, I would recommend you test the Wilson Trinity. An 11 year old will not destroy the felt so these balls will last a long time, which gives you many strokes / $

 

[hadoken]

You are going to get a few different answers here, but the short answer is pressureless balls will always feel a little different than a pressurized ball but it's certainly good enough for a ball machine if you use a high quality pressureless ball. I would only recommend 2 balls if you are pretty serious about your kid-

Wilson Triniti Pro - probably the best feeling straight outta the box and better than the regular Triniti
Spinfire - of all the balls out there (Diadem, Tretorn, Penn, Gamma etc) this is the one brand I have never heard any major complaints about. I had their balls and they are as good as any I have tried (and I have tried all but Tretorn which many people like but I have seen some negative reviews)

 

[Westerwick]

Hadoken lists 6 balls to use, but these have radically different properties. Penn and Gamma pressureless are pure garbage and to be avoided. Neither are very durable. Gammas go soft quickly and pill up badly, their nap is very soft and wears through very quickly with hard shots. I have actually torn the cover off of the Penns, so any hard hitter is likely to destroy them in short order. Tretorn is the hardest of the bunch, wears down evenly, but quickly become weapons grade projectiles with very thin nap and very different playing characteristics. They are also the most expensive of the bunch. Triniti and Diadem are hard to tell apart, play about the same, and both wear very well. With both of those you will eventually see worn patches on the panels where the underlying white mesh shows through. The one difference you will notice is the weight of your wallet, since Diadem is about 60% the cost of Triniti for a ball that is essentially identical. It also plays very similarly to their pressurized balls. I would look at using those as a first choice, and if you're really not happy with them, spend the extra bucks for Trinitis. You could probably mix the two together in the machine and not be able to tell them apart if you don't see the labels. I know that I can't.

As for injuries with the harder pressureless balls, I like the advice from DAK95. For practice racquets I use a couple older, low RA racquets with multifiber or pieces of patched together gut pieces (don't laugh too hard. It looks funny but really works well, you just have to get over having six or eight knots in the stringing job). I'm older and hit really hard, and have essentially no elbow or shoulder pain or problems with that. Takes a couple minutes to readjust to my playing racquets, but I'm willing to do that to save my elbow. I also steer clear of poly strings, and use hybrids of gut/multifiber and gut/synthetic gut for most playing racquets

 

[SpinControl]

I used to use Gamma pressureless. Still have like 60 (or so) brand new.

I injured my rotator cuff one fine cold day trying to hit a high bounced forehand.

I have switched to regular extra duty balls.

I use the washing machine and dryer to wash/dry them. Especially key for balls you fetch out of the trash, etc.

I then inflate them to 25psi in my Corny Keg (holds 50-60 balls).

The ball machine throws them fine. My arm appreciates my gesture as my shoulder has not been inflamed from using the machine...even for high balls.

I literally have 60+ balls that I can use from the last 2 years of playing doubles, etc., and they last a long long time as I hit them 6-7 times each session. Get 2-3 kegs if able, and your son can rotate amongst them. Go to public courts, and you can find many a stale ball on the court, outside, or in the trash to revitalize.

 

[ey039524]

We used to fill our ball machine w/ trinitis and the triniti pros. They're the softest rated ball by TWU, but their bounce is the liveliest of any ball my son and I have used. Now, we're using the Dunlop Grand Prix, which is the second softest rated ball. I bought a used corny keg to store them. They are also lively, compared to others, such as ProPenns. A lot of people use ProPenns around here. Not sure why b/c they feel heavy and dead to me.