{"id":420665,"date":"2026-02-11T22:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T22:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/420665\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T22:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T22:25:12","slug":"rotterdam-open-daniil-medvedevs-jibe-at-horrible-tennis-balls-backed-by-other-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/420665\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotterdam Open: Daniil Medvedev’s Jibe At \u2018Horrible\u2019 Tennis Balls Backed By Other Players\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this week\u2019s Rotterdam Open, there has been plenty of discussion surrounding the quality of tennis balls being used at the ATP 500 event.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It all started with Daniil Medvedev, who has previously raised concerns about the ball quality at various tournaments. During the Russian\u2019s first round match against Ugo Humbert, he blasted the Head Tour XT ball, which he described as \u2018not round\u2019\u00a0and insisted players shouldn\u2019t be playing with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is when you touch it with the racket, it does not react the same way on your shots, so how do you want us to play tennis?\u201d\u00a0Medvedev told the supervisor during his 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-3, loss to Humbert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later in the match, the former world No.1 was more blunt about his feelings towards the balls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese balls are horrible. Please delete these f\u2014ing balls from this f\u2014ing life.\u201d\u00a0Medvedev was heard saying<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe balls are made for \u2026 People who love to please \u2026 People who love to please with a little bit of saliva,\u201d\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n

Since then, more players have weighed in on the debate, with top seed Alex de Minaur agreeing. The Australian is seeking his 11th ATP title in Rotterdam, where he finished runner-up 12 months ago to Carlos Alcaraz.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have struggled a lot in practice. I have actually been quite frustrated with the balls in practice, which is not like me. I do get what Daniil says about the balls,\u201d\u00a0de Minaur told\u00a0Bolavip.com<\/a>\u00a0after beating Arthur Fils in his opening match.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are definitely not my favourite. I don\u2019t think they are anyone\u2019s favourite balls. They are very difficult to control. It is tough to explain it, but it is a very dead ball. It does suit the big hitters, the players that have a big revolution on the ball and are able to hit through that.\u201d He later added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adding to the complaints is Fils, who has called for action to be taken to deal with what he perceives as \u2018terrible balls.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know who is in charge of it, maybe ATP or whatever, but they have to do better, because it is not normal to play with these balls at our level,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n

In recent months, the ATP has taken measures to address complaints surrounding ball quality on the Tour by moving towards a standardisation policy. This means that every ball must meet tolerances on both weight and size, with a diameter between 6.54 and 6.86 centimetres. However, there is an added complication with various tournaments having different sponsorship deals with tennis ball suppliers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last June, Ross Hutchings, who was the ATP\u2019s Chief Sporting Officer at the time, labelled ball centralisation as a \u2018priority\u2019 amid concerns from players that playing with different balls every week is being linked to a rise in injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re actively reviewing specifications and certification standards with expert input \u2013 and with ongoing player feedback at the core. Since 2023, we\u2019ve collected feedback from more than 3,500 player surveys at Tour level. This is a major focus for us, and we\u2019re grateful to our tournament partners and ball suppliers, whose collaboration has been key to driving our progress so far.\u201d Hutchings said in a press release.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Rotterdam Open will crown a new champion following the withdrawal of 2025 winner Alcaraz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At this week\u2019s Rotterdam Open, there has been plenty of discussion surrounding the quality of tennis balls being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-420665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}