Wimbledon officials failing to grab tennis balls back from spectators – Tennis News
Wimbledon Championships officials are finding it difficult to retain the tennis balls that are rolled over to the spectators for one reason or the other. People are taking away the balls as souvenirs and not returning them back
at all. They tennis ball losing rate at Wimbledon is 50 per day at least. However, the number is not too big for such a massive organization yet it’s a bit of concern because if the phenomenon continues, it will just enhance the overall rate of tennis balls
being taken away by fans.
Around 54,000 Slazenger balls are ordered for the whole tournament. Every day almost 2000 balls are used up for two-weeks. There is an opportunity for fans to buy the balls from the All England Club from the official shop of the
Wimbledon Championships but who will buy the ball when they can get it free? The naughty fans keep it with them and don’t bother returning them.
The ball distribution manager at Wimbledon, Brian Mardling stated, “There's probably about 50 balls go missing on average in a day. People are supposed to give them back and generally it seems to be part of the British tennis scene
that we do ask for the ball back. It's a ball in play, its part of the six balls, and if it doesn't get passed back it means the umpire has to introduce another ball. It's more on the outside courts because the outside perimeters are quite low so the balls
bounce into the audience."
He further added, “At Wimbledon we run our spare ball system, so we know that spectators do keep them as souvenirs.” It is not a major problem but funny thing is that the officials are bothered to talk about this matter. They are
earning million of dollars from those visitors yet they are eager to get the tennis balls back from them. It is a funny fact that will go down in the history books.
It will be funnier if they actually order new balls during the match when they are not able to replenish them from their stock because it’s already empty.
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