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Updated: Aug 4, 2026

Bouncing Ball with a Uniformly Varying Velocity in a Metronome Synchronization Task
Published on: September 21, 2017
Bounce of a tennis ball
1Physics Department, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
Abstract:
The bouncing of a tennis ball on a tennis court surface is analysed by making several simplifying assumptions about the physics of the interaction. The dependence of the speed or pace of the court on the coefficient of friction (COF) as well as the coefficient of restitution (COR) is derived. The mathematics of a court's speed is investigated to see how much slow courts tend to reduce the speed of the game. It is found that players must increase their racket head speed by 25% if they wish to compensate for the extra loss of ball speed on slow courts.
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