Why Are Tennis Balls Fuzzy?

The fuzz on a tennis ball is important because it helps the ball to spin and slow down. The fuzz also makes the sport easy on the spectators by making the ball easier to follow.

You must have seen tennis greats like Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, and Rafael Nadal spend two to three minutes before a serve or an important match point simply choosing a ball. They feel it, examine it closely, and bounce it about before they finally pick one ball and stuff some others down their pocket. Is this a good luck charm? No. They’re looking for a ball with its fuzzy covering almost perfectly intact.

Removing the fuzz from a tennis ball will make the ball travel much faster and go outside the court with almost every shot. This way, you could also seriously injure your opponent because they have very little time to react to the ball speeding towards them. It is also difficult to control the direction in which the bare ball travels.