Who Invented the Yellow Tennis Ball

Tennis fans rarely question what a ball should look like: fuzzy, greenish-yellow or neon yellow, and about 6.5 to 6.86 centimeters in diameter. But the modern yellow tennis ball was a deliberate innovation driven by television needs and standardized competition. The shift from black-and-white courts to color broadcasts required a ball with higher visibility, leading to the widespread adoption of yellow in the 1970s and 1980s. Behind the change were equipment makers, tournament organizers, and the International Tennis Federation, who together transformed a basic felt-covered sphere into the highly regulated, high-performance item used today. This profile explains how, why, and when the yellow tennis ball was introduced.