Squash balls vary significantly in their bouncing height and reach the ground at different speeds due to factors like weight and elasticity.
We’ve added linear regression trend lines to demonstrate how each ball bounces compared to its Pro counterpart at various surface temperatures.
Size
Squash is an exceptional sport that can be played year-round, in any weather condition, by players of all skill levels. As players progress in their game, some may require an increased degree of bounce in order to maintain control and hit it consistently at speed. Luckily there is an array of squash balls with various levels of bounciness indicated by different coloured dots on them so choosing one tailored to your skill level will maximize your enjoyment of this wonderful game and minimise injury risks.
The Blue Squash Dot Ball is one of the boucest squash balls on the market and ideal for beginners due to not requiring them to apply excessive force in order for it to reach its optimal height. Red Single Dot balls are also very bouncy and provide recreational players with an opportunity to improve their technique – at 12% larger than official Dunlop Pro Match balls for increased hanging time.
Though double yellow dot squash balls are great for advanced players, some players may find them too slow for them. This is especially true in cold climates where it causes the squash ball to cool down more slowly before warming back up again.
When in these instances, players should opt for an Intro, Progress, or Tournament ball to allow the ball to heat up faster and bounce more predictably and ensure long, fast rallies are enjoyed by all involved.
Weight
As soon as a squash ball is dropped it begins to dissipate energy due to air resistance and gravity as it falls, with its amount dependent on where it strikes the surface it falls upon and dispersion rates for energy dispersion by various surfaces; these changes affect its initial speed, impact velocity and, eventually, bounce height.
Squash balls are created from various materials with differing elasticity, so that they can bounce to different heights when played on. A high quality squash ball should have between 0.85 and 0.91 as its coefficient of restitution value; anything lower means more energy will be lost per bounce.
The blue squash ball features high levels of bounce and produces fast play, making it suitable for beginners or people with lower upper body strength. Red balls offer medium levels of rebound; these may be better suited to more experienced players who understand the sport better; finally double yellow balls offer minimal bounce; these are used by professional players exclusively.
Your choice of squash ball depends on both weather conditions and playing style; warmer balls tend to have higher bounce than cooler ones, making them harder to control. Furthermore, using new balls is beneficial as you will become familiar with their characteristics and how they react – for optimal performance we suggest switching after two or three hours of gameplay with old balls.
Material
Squash balls are typically constructed of rubber material designed to provide ample bounce when they hit the court surface, enabling players to play at a pace that suits them and their skill level. As levels of play increase so too does their required speed – meaning that balls must have enough bounce in them in order to remain agile enough and provide excellent impact force when they impact the ground.
A squash ball is typically composed of raw butyl and sulphur rubber as well as other natural and man-made materials and powders, such as natural rubber latex. These components are then bound together using the process of vulcanisation where heat and pressure are used to bond them together and produce the final product. Sulphur content within rubber helps reduce air resistance caused by friction while acting as an antioxidant which contributes to its durability.
After impact, a squash ball’s material stretches due to atomic interactions but this stretch only lasts an instant before forces push back its polymers back into their original, tangled state, giving it its bounce and providing powerful forces that propel upward when hitting the ground.
The different-coloured dots on a squash ball indicate its level of bounciness; blue balls are designed for beginners just starting out, while red-dotted versions provide intermediate bounce. Yellow squash balls offer slower style play for more experienced players while double yellow dot balls are typically reserved for professional-level athletes.
Hardness
Squash balls are typically constructed of rubber compounds with low resilience. As such, a large proportion of energy used to deform them must be dissipated as heat (with some also released through soundwaves) from strings of the racket, walls/floor/air around it or directly.
When dropping a ball, its mass experiences a downward acceleration due to gravity. When combined with air resistance exerted upwards against it, this prevents it from reaching height equal to its kinetic energy h.
Squash balls are typically decorated with small coloured dots to help players understand its level of bounce. Blue dots typically serve novice players while red ones help improvers or casual players to play better and black dots with single yellow dot are typically used by advanced level tournament players.
Squash ball requires precise hand-eye coordination in order to hit the ball effectively, making it an excellent activity to improve these skills. Furthermore, practicing this sport also enhances performance in other sports or activities that demand similar skills.
Squash balls do not bounce to their maximum legal limits, which may present problems for young players. Therefore, when purchasing squash balls for children it is recommended that they select models designed with soft materials to reduce injury risk if chewed upon. This will help ensure they do not damage teeth or cause injury by being eaten up by young ones.
Temperature
At the compression phase of a squash ball bounce, kinetic energy converts to thermal energy which then gets converted back to kinetic energy during expansion phase. Temperature plays an integral part in how much energy transfers.
Colder squash balls will have less kinetic energy, making it more challenging to bounce, leading many players to vigorously hit them at the beginning of a match to warm them up and prepare them for this particular bounce. On the other hand, hotter balls possess greater amounts of kinetic energy which allows them to hit higher.
Rebound height is determined using a mathematical formula known as the coefficient of restitution, which takes the ratio between bounce height and drop height into account to give a value between 0-1 with one representing an ideal elastic collision.
Different types of squash balls possess differing resiliences that are measured by their colour dot on the ball. Novice players tend to favor blue dotted squash balls while intermediate level players favor red dots on their balls and advanced/professional players favour yellow/double yellow dots as these provide them with better control.
Dunlop, the leading manufacturer of squash balls, recently conducted an experiment to assess the effects of temperature on their various ball types’ bounce heights. They used various ball types and dropped them from a 2 metre wall at various temperatures before analysing using slow-motion cameras to observe results. As seen above, this graph displays each ball’s average rebound height and hang time while linear regression trend lines have also been added; of these balls tested, 95deg F Pro ball showed superior trend lines showing its bounce height increases as surface temperatures change; other balls followed suit similar trends with some increasing gradually rising from 95f.