“Oh, my God,” said Iga Swiatek, smiling, during a press conference at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati. A question had struck a nerve and for a split second she deliberated between whether to speak or hold her tongue. She chose to respond with full force.
The topic was, on the surface, mundane: whether she liked the Wilson US Open tennis balls. But it was loaded with subtext. The US Open is the only grand slam tournament that provides different balls for the men’s and women’s players. While the men use Wilson’s US Open extra duty balls, women use Wilson US Open regular duty balls which are enveloped by a thinner and less fluffy felt cover, leading to a faster, more aerodynamic ball, and consternation among some players.
“I think those balls are horrible,” Swiatek said, bluntly. “Especially after three games of really hard playing, they are getting more and more light. At the end, you can’t even serve 170 kilometres per hour because you know it’s going to fly like crazy. Yeah, I think they are pretty bad. Sorry.”
Among her long list of issues with the balls, Swiatek argued that they lead to increased errors and a less impressive product: “Right now we play powerful, and we kind of can’t loosen up our hands with these balls. I know that there are many players who complain, and many of them are top 10. We make more mistakes, for sure. So I don’t think that’s really nice to watch.”
As she departed the press conference room, Swiatek turned to her audience and smiled sheepishly: “You’ve just started a war.”
Her parting words were prescient as this has become one of the dominant subjects in the build up to this year’s US Open, underlining a perceived double standard between men’s and women’s tennis. A public debate had been coming. In January, Ash Barty’s coach, Craig Tyzzer, said she would never win the US Open with these balls. In the same breath, he referenced the tournament’s recent surprise results four months after Emma Raducanu’s shock title run. “There’s no surprise when the ball is like it is,” he said.
During her week of practice in New York, world No 4 Paula Badosa expressed her disapproval by posting a photo on Instagram of the two different ball cans, the regular duty balls described as “ideal for clay or indoor surfaces”. The US Open is contested on outdoor hard courts.
Jessica Pegula, the US No 1, believes they yield more errors: “I feel like the first couple weeks there are a lot of double faults, because the balls are just kind of flying a bit more,” she said.
In a statement, a USTA spokesperson said they provide balls based on the recommendation of the tours and their player councils: “A number of factors are considered in these decisions, and the USTA will continue to follow the recommendations of the tours and their player councils to determine which balls are utilised during the US Open.”
Historically, the WTA’s recommendation of regular duty balls has been based on the belief that they put less strain on the arms. Swiatek noted that players primarily complain among each other. A clear obstacle for any sort of change in an individual sport played between competitors with different game styles and backgrounds is that preferences vary dramatically. For all the players who loathe the balls, there are many who adore them.
“It’s my favourite ball,” said Madison Keys, smiling. Keys explained that the consistent speed of the balls suits her. Petra Kvitova, who reached the final in Cincinnati, which also uses the balls, struck a similar note. “I love it,” she said, describing their tendency to fly as a virtue. As two of the biggest hitters the sport has seen, both enjoy that the ball imbues their destructive, flat striking with even more pace.
A number of ATP players, including Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev, were not even aware of the specific differences between the two balls, but others have played with both. “I can serve 150 miles per hour with the girls’ balls,” said Taylor Fritz, the men’s US No 1 “They fly a bit more, they’re a bit lighter.”
But Fritz offered a unique perspective of his own. He believes the men’s US Open balls are actually too heavy. “Whenever I’m using the ATP or the Dunlop balls we use most of the year, and then I switch to the men’s Wilson balls, they’re heavy. It doesn’t feel good on my arm, so I can’t really imagine how it would feel for the women’s players as well.”
Pegula, however, has no issues with the men’s balls: “I played with them when I’m at home or when I can’t find any balls,” she said, shrugging. “They just don’t fly as much.”
When he was younger, Fritz played mixed doubles in New York, another problematic aspect of the contrasting balls. The mixed doubles competition uses the regular duty balls at the US Open, meaning those who play both men’s and mixed doubles must switch between different balls in the same tournament. One of the few things that the vast majority of professional tennis players agree on is that constantly playing with different balls increases the risk of injuries.
The lingering question is whether this public, high-profile criticism will lead to any change. One likely protagonist is Pegula, a member of the WTA player council who now lists it on her agenda. “I’m personally not a huge fan. I don’t see why we couldn’t switch to extra duty. But it’s easier said than done, so hopefully the player council can work on that,” she said.