A Short story about the name. Mini Tennis.
When you think about it, ‘minitennis’
Not a clever title for a game…minitennis may suffice, but since 2001 when it started we have been asked hundreds of times if we make the small balls,(which they are not) used for mini tennis.
After spending £ millions trying to reverse the decline in tennis, ....achieving absolutely nothing, the LTA’s paid ‘experts’ in desperation came up with MiniTennis. We developed the balls for them.
They started out using minitennis as a name but quickly slipped
into splitting it back into two words Mistake….by the way, what happened to minitennis.com?.
Originally balls starting the young into tennis were 65mm in diameter.
Then a 70mm ball used for a while, BUT after comprehensive development by J Price for the Lawn Tennis Association, the Official size became
the PRICE Red 75
Mini TWhat is mini tennis?mini ten
Simply put mini tennis is a standardised way of teaching beginners and youngsters how to play tennis.
It uses 3 different balls to get the beginner who had never handled a racket or hit a ball before, to reach the stage of playing tennis with a regular tennis ball before they lose interest. Which has become the norm with so many other things to fill time.
It came into being because the Lawn Tennis Association having spent millions trying to make tennis more popular finally employed ‘experts’ to tell them how to stop the decline of tennis.
They basically said you have to get youngsters into tennis from the earliest age possible before they get involved in the many other alternatives.
Regular tennis balls are too heavy and hard for very young children so it was decided that a lighter but bigger ball was needed to start children off. Progression via intermediate balls as skill and strength develops.
All the ball brands were invited by the LTA to a meeting at Queens Club and given the findings of the experts.
The LTA was asked during the meeting what quantities of balls would be required.
The answer was 1 or 2 thousand dozen possibly. At that point it was obvious the top brands were not interested.
However Derek Price of J Price decided to develop such a ball.
We produced many variations of a ball over a long period before the Lawn Tennis Association testers were agreed on the bigger lighter ball.
Derek refused to make a purely red ball and said it had to be two colours Red and Yellow to be more attractive for children. This was accepted by the LTA.
We christened it the RED75 It became the LTA official standard.Described in various ways when being searched for on the Internet .eg:
Mini tennis Red ball, Red mini tennis ball, minitennis balls, Price Red 75
The International Federation later adopting the J Price specification for use worldwide.But allowing a smaller ball to be used.
We had patented the Red 75, but it was not long before imitations appeared.Our patent infringed constantly but with the big brands in competition it is impossible to uphold the patent worldwide.The market is now flooded with smaller versions.Not in accordance with the LTA testing.
LTA Mini Tennis
MADE IN ENGLAND ENGLAND
