This research paper will talk about tennis and the production of the making of the tennis ball.
Tennis is a sport where a player uses a racket to hit tennis balls into a court with the dimensions of 23.77m x 8.23m. The object of a tennis match is to win a certain amount of games by the scoring objective by 15 as one point, 30 as two points, 40 as three and deuce, where both players have 40 points. That is played by the person who wins two other points in a row with the scoring objective Ad-In (Advantage-40) and Ad-Out (40-Advantage). When those games are won, you may win a set or the match.
The first official recorded time tennis was first played was in the year 1873. A man named Walter Wingfield developed a game called Lawn Tennis, which was said to be deprived from badminton. It was called Lawn Tennis because when tennis first started, it was only played on grass courts. The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) set aside one of its cricket courts for the new sport and Walter Wingfield gave the MCC the rights to make some rules for Lawn Tennis. Later in the 1870’s, the United States found out about Lawn Tennis when an Englishwoman started a cricket club in New York, saving one court for Lawn Tennis. In 1877, the first ever Wimbledon championship was held in Britain. Twenty-two people signed up to play Lawn Tennis in Wimbledon. The queen loved it so much, she pushed it to be the national sport, but never worked out and cricket remained the national sport for the time.
Most of the rules for Lawn Tennis changed the next 30 years such as the net height and the attire. Some remained the same, such as the scoring objectives and court dimensions. In
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1900, a man named Dwight F. Davis formed the first ever international tournament called the Davis Cup. Three months later, the British finally agreed to challenging the United States for
glory in Lawn Tennis. It was at this time the doubles matches were formed and the rules for it took an entire month to figure out how to place the doubles partner. Thats why three years later, the British took the Davis Cup from the United States.
In 1903, women were now able to play lawn tennis in the United Kingdom. May Sutton was the first woman to win a Wimbledon championship. The next century, many rules and attire have changed for lawn tennis. The International Tennis Federation, formed in 1967 has kept all the rules of tennis to this day. The rackets have been made of many different materials such as carbon fibers and aluminum. The development of hard courts and clay courts in the 1960’s changed the name from lawn tennis to just tennis, because the grass courts weren't just the only courts to play on. In the early 1970’s, the first Grand Slam was played out, consisting of four major international tennis competitions. Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, the French Open and the Australian Open. Whoever won all of those receive a Grand Slam title, like Rodger Federer.
In the 1980’s, junior tennis was formed where you people can start learning tennis and playing inside junior tournaments, to help aspire the newest generation of tennis players.
A major part of tennis is the tennis balls. These tennis balls used to be majorly made in the United States and Europe, but switched to the western part of Asia, such as China and Japan. Tennis balls have been made pretty much the same since from the 1900’s. All tennis balls are just pressurized balls of rubber with the outside of it with felt or cloth, depending on the skill level of the player. In the nineteenth century, balls were made of leather cases with re-inflatable
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capabilities. Those balls were a little less efficient, as they would deflate in the middle of matches.
The process of making the modern tennis ball is this: First, machines knead the rubber to make it soft. Powders are added to it to make a ball have varied effects, such as: Its strength, durability, how much force is needed to make it go farther, and color. The mix of ingredients are put in a solution of petroleum and left to soak in all of the liquid it needs for a few hours and a sticky-like structure is formed.
Second, the ball of solution is put into little pellets made of the rubber, clay, zinc oxide, sulfur and Cyclohexyl benthiazyl sulphenamide, which is used to vary a balls acceleration. Third, the rubber, clay, zinc oxide and all the other ingredients are heated down and put into a machine to pressurize and mold the solution into a rod-like shape. The rod is cooled and cut into pellets about 5cm tall and 3cm thick.
Forth, the pellets, cooled and now at room temperature, get put into a hydraulic press that will turn the pellets into half-circle shapes. Two of the shells are put together for the final product. The hydraulic press will stick them to a foil. The ball makers will use special cutting knives to unstick the shells. Fifth, the edges of both halves will be roughed down with a grinding wheel to show where to put the adhesive in the next step. The grinder parts will actually be darker than the outside of the shells.
Sixth, a rubber solution, sort of like rubber cement, but stronger is put on each of the dark part of the half-circles. Seventh, the inflation of the balls. There are two ways to do this. One
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way is to use chemicals to inflate the ball. The chemicals sodium nitrate and ammonium chloride produce nitrogen with creates the air pressure within the shells. The second method is where the shells are almost glued together, but not quite. A needle with an air compression tank gets put under the unglued parts. When inflates the ball a certain amount, the needle is pushed out from the force, and the shells seal with the adhesive. Most major tennis companies such as Penn and Wilson use the first method while Gamma and orange balls and green dots use the second method.
Eighth, when the shells are sealed with no cracks, a “core solution” is added to the shells. This solution is slightly stronger than the adhesive that seals the shells. Once the solution is added, its time to put on the fabric. Ninth, one of the two types of cloth is put on the newly coated shells. One type of cloth is called Melton, which is mainly made of wool and other synthetics. The other is Needle cloth, which is somewhat cheaper for usage and have more synthetics than the Melton cloth. Melton cloth has higher durability, so it is used more for professional uses and all around balls. Needle cloth is used for beginner balls. Any cloth used for manufacturing comes in 100 meter rolls. Thats enough to make one thousand tennis balls!
Special machines cut the cloth into dumbbell or hourglass type shapes. Two of those shapes are used to cover the shells. Once they are put on, some of the core solution leaks out to create the white exterior parts of the ball that eventually hardens.
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Tenth, the ball is put on a heating press. The heat and pressure is what what makes the core solution become the actual white seams of the ball. The ball, now cooled, is removed from the machine. The ball does not have the feel of what a tennis ball should feel like. Eleventh, a short and important step. The balls go through a steamer for at least three hours. The cloth on top will be fluffy. All the ridges from the ball are now gone and the ball is smooth.
Twelfth, after the long process of making a ball, professionals test the ball and grade it for either the professionals, conquistadors (mid), or beginners. They may also see if the ball may have any deficiencies, so that the company may fix them before they are sold to all sporting stores throughout the world.
That is how tennis has evolved through the years as a sport and how a tennis ball can be painstakingly hard to make.