One of the best ways to improve your tennis game, whether you are aiming for Flushing Meadows or just happy playing in your back yard, is to invest in a tennis ball machine.
These automated machines will launch tennis balls your way, ensuring you can practise drills and skills when training by yourself. To be great at playing tennis you need to be consistent and this means practising the same shot over and over again.
This can become a bit tiresome for a hitting partner whereas a tennis ball machine is happy to just keep launching balls at you!
Tennis ball machines can help you to sharpen your footwork, work on your ball positioning and improve your overall control of the ball and its rotations. Since you can adjust the speed and intensity of a tennis ball machine it will also help you develop your stamina to a higher level.
Many tennis courts will rent you a tennis ball launcher for an hour and this can be a great way of trying one out and seeing if it might suit you for use on your court at home.
If you’re keen to take the plunge and invest in your own tennis ball machine take a look at these six great options:
This is a fantastic entry-level tennis ball launcher from Lobster who are known as one of the very best tennis ball machine manufacturers. The portable Lobster Elite Liberty is aimed at beginners up to intermediate level who want to improve their handling of the ball. It launches balls at various speeds and spin and also features random horizontal oscillation.
Lobster Elite Liberty Fact box
- Price: from $1179
- Max speed (mph): 20-80
- Max speed (kmh): 30-130
- Capacity: 150 balls
- Battery life: 2-4 hours
2. SPINSHOT-PLAYER
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This battery-operated portable tennis ball machine is easily programmable. It can adapt the ball height, direction, spin and speed. Users can then program the machine to create a training drill unique to their needs, delivering the ball in six different modes to keep you on your toes.
The machine comes with an app for your phone so you can program it remotely.
Spin-shot Player fact box
- Price: around $1,900
- Max Speed (mph): 19-68
- Max Speed (kmh): 30-110
- Capacity: 120 balls
- 12-amp battery
- App: Yes (Android-based)
3. SPINSHOT PRO MACHINE
This tennis ball machine is aimed at families. The easy-to-use knobs make adjusting the speed, spin or height simple for even the youngest users.
The speed can be adjusted from 20kmh up to 110kmh meaning it can cater to children or beginners right up to Roger-Federer-level adults.
With the press of a button this tennis ball machine will randomly send balls across the net in all directions helping players to work on their reaction speeds and accuracy.
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SpinShot Pro Fact Box
- Price: around $1,500
- Max speed (mph): 19-68
- Max speed (kmh): 30-110
- Battery life: 2-3 hours
- Remote: Yes
4. SPINSHOT PLUS 2 TENNIS MACHINE
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The Spinshot Plus 2 tennis ball machine contains the very latest in technology allowing you to fully program an extended set of tennis drills to give you a really challenging training session.
The machine can be remotely programmed using either an app on your smartphone or via a wristband, making it really easy to adjust even in the middle of a training session.
Spinshot Plus 2 Fact Box
- Price: around $2,000
- Max speed (mph): 19-68
- Max speed (kmh): 30-110
- Battery life: 2-3 hours
- Size: 18″x 12″x 20″
- Weight: 18kg
- Remote control: Yes
- App control: Yes
5. ACE ATTACK
The Ace Attack is a whole other level of tennis ball machine – it is the only machine which can serve you the ball (rather than just launching them at you). This means that players can practise one of the most important skills in tennis: the return of serve.
The machine can feed you serves but also groundstrokes all at adjustable heights.
The ‘hopper’ or ball bin is large enough to hold up to 200 tennis balls (so fewer runs needed to refill the machine) and is transparent, so you can see when the machine is running low (no more annoying hesitation whilst you wonder if the machine is empty, stuck or if someone cut the power!).
As you might expect at this price point there are added extras too — like the five year manufacturer warranty but also the on-court kudos of owning one of these machines is worth a few extra dollars!
Ace Attack Fact Box
- Price: around $7,000
- Max speed (mph): 10-120
- Max speed (kmh): 16-193
- Number of drill patterns: 3
- Capacity: 200 balls
- Remote control: Yes
- App control: Yes
– Full spec on the AceAttack website
6. PLAYMATE iGENIE
This tennis ball launcher is ideal for tennis coaches as it can be programmed to create a drill for a whole group of learners. The controls allow you to select the skill level of the player and then select which types of shots you would like it to launch.
It comes with an app which lets you create and save drills while tracking your progress.
It has an ‘easy use’ panel where players (or coaches) can choose between levels (easy, medium or hard); or pick which sorts of shots they’d like to face (rally balls; moon balls; high and short; low and short; top spin; back spin and numerous others):
There is an additional panel to access more complex settings (like directions, feed rate, delay time or even the direction/area of the court you want balls played into).
At around $7,000 they’re not cheap but they’re a stalwart of hundreds of practise courts around the world – for good reason.
Playmate iGenie Fact Box
- Price: around $7,400
- Max speed (mph): 12-105
- Max speed (kmh): 19-170
- Capacity: 300 balls
- Number of programmable shots: 10
- Remote control: Yes
Last update on 2024-11-21 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API