Wilson LABS: Triniti

How Wilson LABS created a better ball for the planet.

In many ways, the tennis ball could be considered the unsung hero of the sport. When a match goes poorly, players don’t blame it on the ball. And the ball is never credited with a victory, either. Players’ contentment with tennis ball performance has meant next to no innovation in the tennis ball space for the past 50 years. The only significant changes were the ball color changing from white to yellow and the packaging changing from aluminum cans to plastic.

But Wilson LABS never employs the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. So the team got to thinking…what if they could reduce the environmental impact of tennis ball packaging? What if they were able to make a ball perform without the use of a pressurized can? Plastic and metal packaging has been used for years to hold pressure inside the can, but what if they could make a ball that would negate the need for all that pressure? What if they could get this newly-packaged ball to perform just as well as the US Open ball? And what if they took it a step further and engineered the ball for exceptional durability? The team was excited at the prospect of challenging the stagnant status quo and taking a giant step toward sustainability.

But was it possible? There was one way to find out.

The LABS team knew what they needed to do: create a tennis ball with a bounce that is not only as lively and consistent as a high-performance ball but also able to maintain these characteristics outside of a plastic, pressurized can.

The LABS team has a wealth of knowledge and knows what consumers and pros are looking for in a tennis ball: a lively bounce and consistent performance throughout the match. The mission was to develop these characteristics and balance them with the right level of durability in a ball that could live outside a pressurized can. To achieve these goals, the team knew that optimizing the ball's core was critical.

The team worked with Dow Chemical Company to integrate a low-density plastomer into the ball core’s existing rubber compound. This gave the product the desired rebound and playing attributes without the usual pressure. The new core features a thicker wall, but its lightweight structure keeps the ball playing like before. For reference, a standard US Open Extra Duty Ball Core is 3.4 mm. The new Triniti Core is 4.8 mm, a roughly 40 percent increase in wall thickness.

The new core made the Triniti livelier and more consistent. Additionally, the increased wall thickness moved the ball’s mass closer to the center of the core, decreasing the moment of inertia and allowing players to use more spin while exerting less energy.

THE DIFFERENCE WAS FELT

In their quest to achieve a consistently high-performing ball, the team tested the felt to discover if changing it could improve the ball’s performance in a meaningful way. The result? A new “stretch felt,” nicknamed “STR Felt,” that is 50% more flexible than standard tennis ball felt, and gives the player more feel at contact.

SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

THE NAME “TRINITI” COMES FROM THE BALL BEING SUSTAINABLE, HIGH-PERFORMING, AND DURABLE.

By combining the new core material with a more flexible felt, the ball played just as lively as any standard ball on the market, allowing for the first high-performance ball that could live outside a pressurized sleeve.

Because of these two innovations, Triniti maintains its fresh ball feel 4x longer. The new plastomer core material allows the ball to play more consistently from point to point, game to game, and match to match, allowing players to focus more on playing and less on the tennis ball.

The most exciting part – this was no longer just about the ball. Once the LABs team was satisfied with the ball, Wilson's Product and Design Teams began working on the ball’s new sustainable packaging. Wilson teamed up with the world’s leading supplier of sustainable packaging materials to create it: BillerudKorsnäs. Together they developed a fully recyclable package made from FSC-certified materials: the first of its kind in the high-performance tennis ball industry.

Once the LABs team was confident in the ball’s performance, it was time to put it to the ultimate test. The only way to be sure how the ball performed was to give it to the players.

“WHEN IT COMES TO THE BEST PLAYERS IN THE WORLD, THEY CAN SENSE EVEN THE SMALLEST DIFFERENCES IN BALL CHARACTERISTICS AND PERFORMANCE.”

– CHLOE LEE

ADVANCED MATERIALS ENGINEER
FORMER NCAA DIVISION I TENNIS PLAYER

The vast majority of tour and college level players can differentiate changes in equipment. The LABs team decided to conduct a blind playtest, meaning they didn’t mention anything about the ball’s characteristics to avoid preconceived perceptions. The LABS team put Triniti through the wringer, conducting extensive testing with ATP, WTA, and NCAA tennis players. The verdict? Not a single player mentioned anything about the ball’s pressurization throughout testing.

Nearly 50 percent of juniors and adults preferred the Triniti over the US Open ball.

7 out of 10 top Tour players preferred Triniti over the US Open ball in on-court playtesting.

What began as a mission to create more sustainable ball packaging evolved into the first major innovation in tennis ball technology in half a century. Wilson LABS created a high-performance tennis ball delivered in a fully recyclable package. In doing so, Wilson became the first tennis brand to take a major step towards a more sustainable future for the sport.

Updated January 9, 2023