Tennis balls don’t last very long. Even if you only play once or twice a week, before long, you will end up with a ton of used tennis balls. What do you do with tennis balls that have lost their felt and don’t bounce much?

Things you can do with old tennis balls

1. Donate to non-profits and schools

Non-profit organizations such as Tennis without borders,  Salvation Army, and Goodwill, and your local schools will take tennis balls and put them to use.

2. Donate to tennis coaches

Tennis coaches go through hundreds of balls every year. They will be happy to take gently used tennis balls.

3. Use them in your clothes dryer 

Put them in a sock and throw them in the dryer. This will fluff clothes and dry your clothes faster. You can even drop scented oil on the balls to imitate the fresh scent of fabric softeners. 

4. Use on walkers

You can attach tennis balls to walkers to improve stability. Tennis balls also allow the walker to glide more easily on rough surfaces. 

5. Use on bike stands

Bike stands get dirty if you park them in soggy soil. Attach a tennis ball to your stand to keep it clean.

6. Use them  on chairs 

Do you have chairs that squeak every time you move them? Attached old tennis balls to the chair’s legs. Your chairs will stop skidding and squeaking. In addition, this will also protect your floors.

7. Use them as a grip to open jars

Cut the tennis balls open and use them as a grip to open tough-to-open containers and jars.

8. Recycle them

The cans that hold the tennis balls are made of plastic and can be recycled. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of options when it comes to recycling tennis balls. Recycleballs.org and Recycle Nation are a couple of options to check out if you would like to recycle tennis balls.

When you see a top tennis player participating in a 250-level tournament, you can easily conclude that they were paid an appearance fee to play. The appearance fee for Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic can be over a million dollars depending on the tournament.

Finances of tennis tournaments have been constrained for the past year due to COVID-19. The inability to have fans in stadiums and reduced sponsor interest has led tournaments to slash prize money.

This has also hampered the tournament’s ability to pay appearance fees for top players. Tournaments rarely speak about appearance fees though the practice is common around the world.

This week, the tournament director for the Acapulco event in Mexico, Raul Zurutuza,  said that the tournament will not feature Rafael Nadal this year because the event can’t afford to pay Nadal’s appearance fee of $500,000 to $1 million.

Acapulco will have Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Diego Schwartzman headline the tournament. These players have taken a cut in their appearance fee, according to Zurutuza. The appearance fee for these players is also substantially lower than Nadal’s.

With a lot of tournaments being canceled, many top players have shown willingness to reduce their appearance fee. But as the Acapulco case shows, top players such as Nadal still hold considerable clout over the tournaments.