How many tennis balls are used at Wimbledon each year?

How to get close to this number

Multiply matches by balls per match. The tournament runs hundreds of matches over a fortnight, balls are changed every nine games, and a match runs to dozens of games across several sets. Matches times changes times balls per change gives a figure in the tens of thousands.

The nine-game interval is the detail that drives the number. Balls lose pressure and pick up fluff quickly, changing how they fly, so consistency requires replacing them long before they are worn out. A sport that tolerates no variation in equipment consumes it at a rate that would be absurd anywhere else.

The storage temperature is the extreme version of the same principle: balls kept at exactly twenty degrees, because internal pressure and therefore bounce vary with temperature. And the disposal detail is the charming one — used balls sold to the public, and some donated as nesting homes for harvest mice.