Ball Markings and Stamps

One of my readers, asked me a question about ball markings. Not to bury the lead, but the exciting thing from that receiving that question is that someone who is not an obligated immediate family member actually read one of my posts. The specific question had to do with standards and conventions on legal ball markings and specifically if red ink is indicative that the ball is intended for clay.

In the part of the country where I live, the vast majority of the tennis is played on hard courts. Players in this are are conditioned to buy extra duty balls rather than regular duty because regular duty just doesn’t hold up to the wear and tear of a full match. As a point of reference, my training partner last night and I had a conversation about how annoying it is when the team providing the balls in a league match proffers regular duty balls

Until I started this project, my personal thought pattern in this area pretty much consisted of the belief that extra duty is a hard court ball and that regular duty is for clay. My recent revelation that the the US Open uses regular duty balls for women matches disabused me of that notion. I would observe that with the frequent ball changes, that wear and tear of the balls is not in the same at that venue as it is for the majority of the tennis playing public.

The ITF indicates that no more than two decals/stamps are permitted to be printed on a ball and that the markings have to be a reasonable size and appropriate for the ball. Naturally this makes by brain wonder if the ITF has rejected a ball due to inappropriate markings and more specifically what those markings would be. Probably I would be disappointed to learn that the list only contains boring things like misleading statements or accuracy issues, but it is a fun thought exercise nonetheless.

The ITF restricts logos to a height of 32 mm and a width of 52 mm and indicates that the printed area cannot exceed 22% of the face of the ball. It is possible for a ball to fail ITF testing due to lack of compliance with the markings.

Logo size was front of mind for me when I happened to be at the USTA National Campus recently and noticed that their custom ball marking is pretty large. (The picture also provides a visual example of how much Wilson balls fuzz up.)

There does not seem to be a restriction or standard for the color of the logo. Exploring the thread of why red seems to be associated with regular duty or clay courts, eventually leads to Penn balls. Penn has a convention of labeling regular duty balls with red ink. This has built into a general association that the red labels are “clay” balls. You rarely see a red labeled Penn ball in use in my geographic area and I think is due to some sort of stigma that a red labeled ball is inappropriate for the surface.

The ITF has no standard or restriction on the color of the ball label. Wilson uses a combination of red and black on their labels regardless of the duty rating of the ball. I found no other manufacturer that uses the red labeling convention.

The US Open web site ran an interesting article in 2017 about the guys who run the ball distribution room at that tournament each year. That article indicated that the US Open Logo is black for the extra duty “Men’s” balls and it is in red for the regular duty “Women’s” balls. When the balls are outside of the can that is the “telltale” way to differentiate them. Probably it would be very confusing to people if they reversed the colors, due to the Penn convention.

So in a nutshell, balls labels are restricted in size but there are no requirement or restrictions for color. In the meantime, if anyone has a list of ITF determined inappropriate markings, please, please, please send it to me.

1. Procedures for Obtaining 2020 ITF Approval of Tennis Balls, ITF
2. The Keepers of the Tennis Balls, US Open Web Site, Aimee Berg, 4 Sep 2017
3. United States Tennis Association (2020) Friend at Court. White Plains, NY