Tennis is one of the most polluting sports. An ecological observation which is largely explained by the unbridled use of small yellow balls.
“Change ball pick-ups, please. New balls”. This little tune, the spectators of Roland-Garros know it well. Every nine games, the referee orders the change of the six balls used during a match. During Gaël Monfils’ first round, no less than 36 balls were hit in this match alone. And, in total, more than 50,000 balls are consumed during the fortnight of Roland-Garros.
Figures that make you dizzy and whose magnitude can be explained by a very simple reason: the extremely short lifespan of yellow balls. “Pro players have to change balls almost every hour because they hit so hard that the felt wears out very quickly,” explains Gregory Merguerian, co-founder of bouncea start-up behind several products aimed at making tennis more environmentally friendly.
Amateur players, although more lenient with their balls, are also required to change them very frequently. “New bales are kept under pressure. Once removed from their original packaging, they lose pressure and must be replaced after a few hours of play.assures Gregory Merguerian, even if the felt remains intact ”. In France, 17 million yellow balls are used each year by all practitioners. Balls composed mainly of rubber which are totally obsolete and which take an average of 2,500 years to degrade naturally.
Operation Yellow Ball still perfectible
Faced with this environmental challenge, the French Tennis Federation took up the issue and in 2009 gave birth to Operation Yellow Ball. An initiative inviting licensees to deposit their used balls in cardboard boxes installed in the clubs. The bales are then collected, repatriated to a crushing center and transformed into rubber aggregates. A material that is used in the production of sports infrastructure floors such as multi-sports grounds or playgrounds. An operation that Nathalie Dechy, in particular semi-finalist of the Australian Open in 2005 and godmother of the operation since 2016, describes as “virtuous circle”.
A “virtuous loop” that remains perfectible. Firstly because the recycling processes used by the federation are complex and expensive, but also because the number of balls recycled each year – 1.3 million on average – constitutes only a fraction of the number of balls used by practitioners. To limit the environmental impact of French tennis, the federation can however count on the ingenuity of other players.
Used balls at the service of ballet dancers
Based in the Vaucluse, Loïc Durand knew how to use tennis balls to improve the comfort and performance of ballet dancers. In 2001, this engineer founded his company show after having patented its dance floor composed of yellow balls which now equips more than 250 rooms in France and abroad.
Until 2022, the company produced its dance floors exclusively from new balls because “buying the same model always means having the guarantee that all the parameters (flexibility and damping) remain the same” underlines his son Arthur who accompanies him in this family adventure. But just over a year ago, the provider of show announces a shortage of balls, pandemic obliges.
Six months of research and development followed and several trials in partnership with the Avignon Opera Ballet to obtain a floor that was just as comfortable for the dancers, but composed exclusively of recycled balls. “We are now able to recycle 30,000 used balls per year at the Provence tennis league”, assures Arthur Durand. A figure which however does not represent more than 10% of the balls recycled annually in the PACA region.
“Multiply the life of bullets by three”
Making tennis more eco-responsible does not only mean taking better account of the recycling of balls, but also finding solutions to increase their lifespan and thus limit the amount of waste. A challenge that the founders of bounce.
With his two associates, Antoine Wouters and Maxime Sohet, Gregory Merguerian founded a company based on the creation of a tube equipped with a pump which makes it possible to recreate a pressurized environment for balls which have already been used. “Thanks to this process, the balls keep the pressure much longer. This makes it possible to multiply their lifespan by three”, says Gregory Merguerian.
A solution offered to individuals but also to clubs wishing to reduce their environmental impact with an adapted version. “We have developed a tank that can hold up to 400 bullets that work using the same process. The only difference is that the manual pump is replaced by a much more powerful compressor” explains the entrepreneur. An ecological solution among others for the 7,000 clubs affiliated to the FFT.