Tennis balls go dead after 2-3 sessions but players keep using them for weeks because new balls are $4-7 per can

A can of 3 Penn or Wilson tennis balls costs $4-7. After 2-3 hours of play, the pressurized balls lose their bounce — the internal pressure drops from 14 PSI to 10 PSI. The balls feel heavier, bounce lower, and travel slower. After a week (3 sessions), they are noticeably dead. After 2 weeks, they are barely usable. But you bought a can on Monday, and it is only Wednesday. Throwing away $5 worth of balls every 2 sessions feels wasteful. You play with dead balls for another week, wondering why your timing is off. Your muscle memory adapts to dead-ball bounce, and when you open a fresh can, the lively bounce feels foreign for 20 minutes. So what? Tennis is the only major sport where the primary equipment degrades after every use and must be replaced constantly. A soccer ball lasts months. A basketball lasts years. Tennis balls last hours. At 2 cans per week for a 3x/week player, that is $8-14/week — $400-700/year on an item that goes in the trash. Pressureless balls (which do not go dead) exist but feel different and are rejected by most players. Ball pressurizers (tubes that re-pressurize balls) exist but add hassle. Why does this persist? The ITF (International Tennis Federation) specifies ball pressure standards that essentially require pressurized balls for official play. Manufacturers (Penn, Wilson, Dunlop) sell 400M+ balls annually — a $1.5B market built on planned obsolescence. Pressureless balls are legal but stigmatized as 'practice balls.' Ball recycling programs exist (Rebounces, RecycleBalls) but only 10% of used balls are recycled. The rest go to landfills — 125M balls per year in the US alone.