The last time Daniil Medvedev went a season without winning a title, TikTok was the sound that clocks made, coronavirus was what happened when you drank too many Mexican beers, and Donald Trump had just become president.
That’s right: for the first time since 2017, Medvedev had a titleless year. Why? If you ask him, it was because of the state of the tennis balls used on the ATP Tour. But is that true? Have the balls actually gotten worse? Or is the Russian just looking for a scapegoat to cover up his poor results in 2024?
The Rotation of Balls on the ATP Tour
Something that might be assumed by lots of people is that tennis players use the same tennis ball at every event. That’s not the case though, as there are multiple brands of tennis balls that are used.
In fact, at times it gets so bad that consecutive events use totally different tennis balls, which makes it very hard to find consistency. The way a tennis ball plays has a lot of impact on the way a player plays.
Some players prefer the tennis balls to be more heavy. Some players like them more on the light side. But all of them prefer them to be of high quality and not to get fluffy after only a few games.
The Post-Pandemic Tennis Balls
Post-pandemic, tennis balls have been noticeably different.
Not only have they been of poorer quality, becoming very fluffy after a while, which makes it really hard to control them. They’re also more on the heavy and slow side, which is generally not preferred by players as they need to exert more energy to hit winners.
You only have to take the word of Alexander Zverev to understand the crux of the problem. As somebody who is on the Player’s Council, the German had more insight than the average player into the problem, and he shared recently exactly what happened with the balls.
“Because of COVID, the companies tried to cut costs and they’re using a different rubber material now,” he said recently. “They’re using a different material for the tennis balls, which makes the tennis balls between 30% and 60% slower on average compared to what it was before COVID. I just generally think in general, it’s not only one company, but in general the balls got a lot worse and a lot slower. They’re not as consistent anymore. They don’t last as long anymore.”
This creates lots of problems for players. It’s not so much that it impacts style; it impacts health, and that’s not good. The wear and tear effect is quite notable, with more and more injuries proving that something is going on. Players are likely not getting weaker, but the stress the body experiences is getting greater, which Zverev agrees with.
“What happens now with the tennis balls is that the air and the pressure leave the tennis ball because of the material,” he continued. “The material doesn’t keep it inside. It’s not only that the ball fluffs up, but actually the air and the pressure of the tennis ball drops drastically. That’s why a lot of players now have elbow issues. A lot of players have wrist issues. That was not the case about 10, 15 years ago.”
Medvedev’s Views and Performance
Medvedev has talked about this many times, most recently at the Shanghai Masters where he said:
“Well, to be honest about the balls, it’s not only me. I talk in the locker room, it’s not only my feeling. My feeling is that at this point, the companies try to see how far they can go to make bad balls and the ATP doesn’t say anything. It’s not good enough balls for professional tennis.”
As Medvedev pointed out, he’s not the only one who has expressed dissatisfaction with the tennis balls at some point, and that’s in both the ATP and WTA.
Medvedev has had a subpar 2024 season and claims it is because of the balls. There is only one way to find out and that’s to analyze his 2024 season compared to years past, so let’s take a closer look at what happened this year compared to last year.
Medvedev won 66 matches in 2023 and lost only 20 of them. He made nine finals in total, winning six trophies, most of them in the first half of the year.
This year the Russian won only 46 matches and lost 22, which is a significant drop-off. Even the finals statistics clearly show that, as he made only two finals and lost both of them.
There were some bright moments this year, such as the Australian Open run where he made the final and won two sets, as well as the Wimbledon win over a sick Jannik Sinner, but other than that, it’s been a pretty poor showing from him. He had a 1-6 record indoors this year after posting a 13-6 record last year.
Reasons Behind Medvedev’s Drop Off
While this drop-off can certainly be attributed to the tennis balls as we mentioned above, it’s not that simple. If we go by the eye-test, Medvedev has played considerably worse this year compared to last year. Not only has he played worse this year, he also took things somewhat less seriously.
The Russian is known as a very loose player who plays without much urgency too often, but that’s always been the case. It’s what allows him to steamroll some of the best players in the world without too many problems as well.
His level has always had that dose of volatile variance which shows up without any particular pattern. So this rather poor season is the result of mostly him not playing as well as he can.
Could his level have dropped off because he was rather annoyed by the tennis balls in use? For sure, because it is a problem, especially for Medvedev.
Let’s say there are very heavy balls in use at an event. Somebody like Carlos Alcaraz or Sinner, who generally play with lots of pace, can always hit the ball harder because that’s their MO. That’s what they generally do. Somebody like Medvedev doesn’t put as much pace in his shots which makes it harder to hit winners for him.
His play is that of mostly putting the ball back and attacking on the counter, which gets trickier the heavier the balls get. He has to hit the ball with more power, which he isn’t used to. More power equals less control, and we have a player who is making a lot of mistakes, as Medvedev did this season.
Breaking Down the Stats
He had 295 double faults this year compared to 315 last year and that’s with 20 matches less played. So you can see how negatively it impacted the Russian in live play. Add to that the frustration of the Tour not addressing the problem – they’re doing a bad job at communicating about the problem – and you have a player who is growing even more annoyed by what is going on.
We won’t compare totals like aces because Medvedev hit almost 120 aces more last year than this year, but he also played some 20 matches more last year. The percentages will tell us a better story. He hit the first serve 64% of the time last year compared to 61% this year.
That’s not a huge regression but could imply some issues with ball control due to him having to hit them harder as they’re fluffier and generally heavier. He won 75% of his first serve points last year compared to 73% this year, which again is not a huge difference overall. It’s notable but likely statistically insignificant.
When it comes to the second service points, it’s again very similar, 50% to 49% this year. He saved 67% of the breakpoints he faced last year compared to 61% this year, which is a good drop-off and interesting to note. Overall, though, there isn’t much difference, even in the return stats which are almost identical. You could say that this year’s stats would be lower if he played 20 more matches and that’s likely true, but we can only compare to what really happened.
Our Verdict
So with all this in mind, it’s not so much that the balls cost Medvedev titles and wins because his stats are almost identical compared to last year.
It’s mostly that he didn’t play as sharply this year as he needed to. Ultimately, tennis is very situational, a tiebreak here, a breakpoint there, and the match can flip.
He wasn’t very lucky this year, the draws were pretty rough for him and some players like Sinner simply dominated too much. Medvedev had a down year but it looks bleaker than it actually is.
The tennis balls likely didn’t help because their quality is going down, but that’s across the board for all the players. It didn’t result in this results drop-off for him by itself, although it likely contributed.
Read more about what Medvedev and all the top 10 players need to improve ahead of the new 2025 season.
But are the poorer 2024 post-COVID balls (with which Medvedev won nothing) markedly worse than the poorer 2023 post-COVID balls (with which he won a number of things)?
All the different manufacturers’ balls dropped off that much in one year? and at the same time?
Remembering that COVID was not in 2023 but mainly in 2020.
I think it has more to do with the rise of Sinner and Alcaraz and the way Medvedev keeps running into them at the finals stages of tournaments. He implied as much himself in press conferences during the year.
I can 100% see how players would prefer 1 brand for every week. It would take away 1 of the main variables they need to adjust to, and with court surface, the site itself, weather etc etc, there’s still plenty of difficulty for them.
I also believe some players prefer different brands, with Dunlop taking over more tournaments in recent years, certain players will be at a disadvantage.
What does not make sense is Zverev’s claim that balls are supposedly 30 to 60% slower. That is clearly impossible so he should be challenged on what that means exactly.
What is also clearly untrue is that balls are heavier. The specs for a tennisball are very tight. The weight is set between 56 to 59,4 grams. It is just untrue that balls were at the bottom end before covid and the top end post-covid. If the balls are out of spec, that is a different matter and something the tour should and would 100% crack down on.