In 1910 (Penn’s first year of manufacturing), we produced a grand total of 13,000 tennis balls. Now, more than 100 years later, our state of the art factory produces more than 13,000 tennis balls each hour!

The first tennis balls produced were not put in pressurized cans but came fresh off of the line and were trucked to dozens of factory branches which sold “fresh” tennis balls. Pressurized cans were introduced in 1922 to give the tennis balls a longer shelf life.

During the past decade, our factories have used A LOT of felt in the production of tennis balls… More than 150 million square feet of optic yellow felt has been used to produce tennis balls. A blanket of this much felt would cover almost 6 square miles of area.

If we cut a continuous strip of this much felt to a one-inch width, it would extend more than 350,000 miles long. You could wrap that around the earth about 14 times. And it would be about as far to the moon and halfway back!

Tennis balls are made for different surfaces. Extra-Duty felt for hard courts, Regular-Duty for softer courts (clay, grass) and Extra-Duty High Altitude for courts located in higher elevations (4000+ feet above sea level).