{"id":462289,"date":"2026-02-11T14:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/462289\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T14:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:08:08","slug":"really-terrible-tennis-balls-at-rotterdam-open-face-more-criticism-from-top-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/462289\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Really terrible\u2019 tennis balls at Rotterdam Open face more criticism from top players"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two more tennis stars have supported Daniil Medvedev\u2019s criticism of the tennis balls<\/a> being used at the Rotterdam Open, one describing them as \u201creally terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arthur Fils, a rising talent who is returning from a longterm back injury, and Alex de Minaur, the world No. 8, played each other Tuesday. After de Minaur\u2019s 7-6(3), 6-2 win, both players expressed frustration with the much-maligned Head Tour XT ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are terrible. Really terrible. The ball is very bad. It is unbelievable,\u201d Fils said to sports website Bolavip<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we are playing at this level, literally playing professionally, very good players, then watching the balls after two games getting bigger and very slow, that is not normal.<\/p>\n

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

De Minaur told the same outlet: \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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are definitely not my favourite. I don\u2019t think they are anyone\u2019s favourite balls. They are very difficult to control.\u201d<\/p>\n

An ATP Tour spokesperson and a representative for Head did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Fils and de Minaur\u2019s comments followed Medvedev\u2019s outburst during a three-set loss to Ugo Humbert Monday. After calling the tournament supervisor to the court, Medvedev said: \u201cThese tennis balls are round, or not round?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre they round? Head balls, are they round? Are you sure? Because I see it not round\u201d<\/p>\n

After the supervisor confirmed that they are round, Medvedev said: \u201cIt\u2019s a bit strange. So I think maybe we should consider not playing with Head balls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Head Tour XT ball is not round, so we should not (be) playing with it, nobody should be buying it, we should not be promoting a tennis ball that is not round.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have three more games to play with not good balls,\u201d Medvedev continued.<\/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<\/p>\n

He then tossed them away after the conversation ended.<\/p>\n

While professional tennis players often separate their discussions of ball speed and court speed, the two are necessarily interlinked. The same balls were in use at the previous week\u2019s Occitanie Open in Montpellier, France, where the court speed was significantly quicker (40.7 on the Court Pace Index (CPI)) than in Rotterdam, where it has been measured at 34.6. 40.7 is medium-fast; 34.6 is medium-slow. Fils played in both tournaments, while there were no public complaints about the balls from the Occitanie Open.<\/p>\n

The CPI measures the coefficient of friction \u2014 how much ball speed decreases upon contact with the court \u2014 and of restitution \u2014 which effectively measures how bouncy a court is. It also takes into account weather conditions and the game style of the player whose shots are being used in the calculation, but it is a limited metric. It is presented as an average, usually only covers the show court at a given tournament, and historical data is not readily available.<\/p>\n

The ATP is moving toward standardizing the balls used on the tour, which has previously been complicated due to tournaments played on the same surface, or in the same part of the season, having different sponsorships. Regardless of manufacturer, all balls must meet specifications on weight and size, with the diameter between 6.54 and 6.86 centimeters.<\/p>\n

In a news release last June, the ATP Tour said that it had made \u201csignificant progress in delivering greater ball consistency across the Tour\u201d.<\/p>\n

It added: \u201cThis is the first season in which the ATP is centralizing the ball-supplier selection process, in collaboration with tournaments, moving away from the previous model where tournaments independently selected their own suppliers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tour said it expects complete centralization by the 2027 season.<\/p>\n

De Minaur also went on to make a similar complaint to one Medvedev has made before \u2014 that the balls are extremely difficult to hit through and favour the tour\u2019s biggest hitters. \u201cIt is tough to explain it, but it is a very dead ball,\u201d he said. \u201cIt does suit the big hitters, the players that have a big revolution on the ball and are able to hit through that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medvedev, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of the balls used on the ATP Tour, claimed at the Shanghai Masters in 2024 that the ones being used could only be hit through by players with \u201ccrazy power\u201d like Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.<\/p>\n

At that year\u2019s ATP Tour Finals, he said in a news conference: \u201cEvery practice is a struggle. Every match is a struggle. I was holding (serve) for long time. Now I feel zero pleasure of being on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medvedev had said at the Australian Open last month that tennis balls are \u201cgetting better\u201d, but that goodwill evaporated Monday. After his initial complaint against Humbert, he later said \u201cthese balls are horrible. Please delete these f\u2014ing balls from this f\u2014ing life.\u201d<\/p>\n

World No. 4 Alexander Zverev has been another harsh critic of the balls the tour uses, while Taylor Fritz, the world No. 7, has repeatedly said he would change the balls used and would want an end to the switching of balls at different events. He and others have drawn a link between the balls used and an increase in injuries on the tour, while multiple players have attributed their heaviness to matches feeling slower and rallies longer, though tour data shows that rallies have remained stable or shortened over the past five years.<\/p>\n

The players will have to figure out how to use the Head ball most effectively for the rest of the tournament, which finishes Sunday. De Minaur, who is the No. 1 seed, concluded that \u201cit is what it is. The ball or the court is not going to change and my job is to adapt and do my best and continue doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He next faces either home player Thijs Boogaard or three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka in the round of 16 Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two more tennis stars have supported Daniil Medvedev\u2019s criticism of the tennis balls being used at the Rotterdam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,1794,428],"class_list":["post-462289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}