Why tennis players pick and choose from different balls?

Question

I can’t find any real explanation for this. Are there different balls? Some harder, some faster… or is it just a habit from players?

In: 56

Answer 1

Some balls will have more fuzz, more bounce, etc. No matter how uniform the production, there’s always some variance in the end product and this becomes even more true once they start to get used. These small differences give them slightly different properties and when you play enough of a sport you start to notice minor things about equipment and develop preferences. Some of it might be habit or superstition, but much of it is just picking a ball that you feel will behave the way you want.