Rebounces Gives Tennis Balls Longer Lives
Rebounces wants to give tennis balls longer lives by repressurizing them and putting them back on the court. Read More
Tennis balls are made of materials that last much longer than the balls’ useful life to tennis players.
Once tennis balls start getting smacked around, they begin to lose pressure, eventually getting to the point that they’re useless on the court. Although they sometimes end up as dog chew toys or padding for walkers, one company wants to make tennis balls’ first lives much longer.
Rebounces is a small, three-person operation that formed in 2007 to extend the use of tennis balls by repressurizing them, and just last month launched a repressurizing machine aimed at tennis teachers and other who go through large volumes of balls quickly. “You can double or triple the life of a tennis ball,” said Grant Garland, co-founder of Rebounces, about his company’s technology.
The company received a big boost last month as well when it collected about 15,000 tennis balls with the help of FedEx at one of the largest tennis tournaments in the United States.
Since its founding, Rebounces has taken mailed-in tennis balls and put them through its repressurizing machine, which can hold several thousand balls at a time and repressurize them over a few days through a patented process.
Rebounces provides prepaid shipping labels, so it doesn’t cost people anything to send in balls. The company resells the balls that it’s able to repressurize for less than the cost of new balls. Sometimes Rebounces ends up with balls that are too worn out to be repressurized and reused. In that case, they distribute them to adult care facilities, hospitals, schools or animal shelters to be used on the bottom of furniture or walkers, or as chew toys.
And for those balls in even worse shape, Rebounces is looking at different ideas such as grinding them up to be turned into sport surfacing similar to Nike’s recycled-rubber Grind flooring.
The version of the repressurizing machine Rebounces is selling, called the Green Machine, is a bit smaller, with a capacity of 400 balls. “It’s really designed for teaching professionals,” Garland said.
The machine was launched at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., a two-week tennis tournament where Rebounces also collected close to 15,000 balls.
A couple years ago, the tournament organizers contacted Rebounces to see if they wanted to be at the event. After its first, small setup at the tournament in 2009, Rebounces had more time to prepare for this year’s event.
Garland said he reached out to FedEx, which has its Freight division headquartered in Harrison, Ark., the same city Rebounces is based out of.
Rebounces was doing all of its shipping through FedEx, and after speaking with various departments within the company, Garland got in touch with FedEx Ground, which agreed to provide free shipping for all of the balls from the tournament in California back to Rebounces’ headquarters.
“Because we were a growing client within FedEx, it just made sense to try to get them involved,” Garland said.
The exposure from the event has brought plenty of attention to Rebounces. “We’ve been contacted by many big tournaments in the U.S. and they want to hold similar events,” Garland said. Rebounces is still in touch with FedEx Ground, talking about the possibility of continuing the partnership from the BNP Paribas Open.
Garland said they are also receiving queries from outside of the U.S. as well since tennis balls can cost much more in overseas locations what they cost in the United States.
Tennis balls – http://www.flickr.com/photos/86624586@N00/ / CC BY 2.0
