The real reason tennis balls are yellow and how Sir David Attenborough was involved
12 July 2024, 17:18
Why are tennis balls that fluorescent greenish-yellow colour? With Wimbledon kicking off, we’ve found the real reason and it surprisingly has a lot to do with Sir David Attenborough.
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It’s not something anyone ever talks about, but the unusual colour of a tennis ball is actually a very purposeful decision.
While Wimbledon continues in London, the public and celebrities alike will watch players go head-to-head in the hopes of winning a serious amount of cash and a trophy presented to them by Kate Middleton, if her health allows.
Regardless whether if it’s Emma Raducanu or Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic or Jasmine Paolini, the colour of the ball remains constant as it’s hit from one side of the net to the other.
The fuzzy fluorescent colour has been a staple in the sport for decades and it’s all because of Sir David Attenborough.
Why are tennis balls yellow?
Roughly half a century ago in the 1960’s, before the documentary maker had made a huge name for himself – let alone got knighted – David worked at the BBC.
He was specifically a controller for BBC2 and was head-to-head in a race to fully launch coloured television to the nation before the Germans.
“True, the Americans and the Japanese had both got colour, but Europe hadn’t. I heard the West Germans were doing it and I discovered that they were planning to launch it very close to when we were,” he told RadioTimes.
Whilst figuring out how to film for both black and white as well as coloured TV, David noted that the tennis balls which were either black or white at the time, were incredibly difficult to see on screen.
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It was then that David coined the idea of the yellow tennis balls, “Yellow tennis balls, which look better on colour TV, were the idea of David Attenborough when he was Controller of BBC2,” authors John Lloyd, James Harkin, and Anne Miller wrote in their book 2,2024 QI Facts To Stop You In Your Tracks.
Despite being at the ripe age of 98 now, David still clearly remembers this time in his life. “And it suddenly dawned on me that the one thing we did have was outside broadcast units. I thought, “Blimey, couldn’t we deploy them?” And then I thought of Wimbledon,” he told the publications.
“I mean, it is a wonderful plot: you’ve got drama, you’ve got everything. And it’s a national event, it’s got everything going for it. I was as proud as a peacock. It was absolutely terrific. It was a big moment in my life.
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