Find out how tennis balls are made

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Find out how tennis balls are made

A new short film features the intricate 24-step process.

ByNina Pantic

Published Jul 23, 2016

All this time you’ve been holding and hitting tennis balls, and yet you didn’t know about the incredibly complex process behind making them look, act and feel so right. Filmmaker Benedict Redgrove went to the Wilson factory to get the lowdown, and he explained the process in his new feature, "How to Make a Tennis Ball."

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The process is lengthy and intricate, taking a staggering 24 steps.

There's a lot of rubber:

Find out how tennis balls are made

And plenty of yellow fuzz. (That's where the delicious new-tennis-ball smell comes from):

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Find out how tennis balls are made

Toward the end, the Wilson logo is put on in the exact right spot, with precision and care:

Find out how tennis balls are made

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Then the yellow spheres slide into canisters and have labels slipped on before settling into large Wilson cases, ready to be delivered to a tennis court near you.

The next time you hold a perfectly manufactured tennis ball in your hand and think about launching it over a fence in anger, kindly reconsider, because these babies were made with love.