Tennis Ball Machines
Tennis Ball Machines:
A Tennis Ball Machine is a machine that propels a tennis ball to a tennis player for the purpose of practicing returning the ball. Tennis ball machines are commonly used at country clubs and by tennis professionals. Depending on the type of tennis ball machine it can be use to train returning serves, or returning volleys. There are many types of tennis ball machines each can have many different settings. Most tennis ball machines throw the tennis balls in one of two ways:
By using two wheels that spin in opposite directions the ball is squeezed by the counter rotating wheels that have a small space in between the wheels. The tennis ball machine will continue to shoot tennis balls as they are supplied down the shoot to the spinning wheel.
The other type of tennis ball machine shoots the tennis balls by using air pressure they are called pneumatic tennis ball machines. The tennis ball is dropped down a shoot into a tube where pressure is applied supplied to a drum by a vacuum cleaner motor. Pneumatic machines are falling out of favor because they use a lot of electricity and cannot use a battery. The level of performance with pneumatic machines tends to be worse than the counter wheel machines.
The wheel driven machine put spin on the ball my changing the speed between the two different wheels. The amount of spin can be changed and even turned off of many machines. If the bottom of the ball is rubbed before exiting the tennis ball machine it creates topspin. If the top of the ball is rubbed before exiting the tennis ball machine bottom spin or under-spin is created.
Most tennis ball machines use an oscillator. An oscillator allows the machine to throw balls in different locations of the court. On most tennis ball machines these mechanisms can be set to different configurations.
How to select the tennis ball machine you should use. Intermediate tennis players should use a tennis ball machine that accelerates the tennis balls to 40 to 60 miles per hour. It is important to choose the correct tennis ball machine for you based on the ability of machine to reach high enough tennis ball velocity for your skill level.
