Article by Adrian Duţă – Published Saturday, 09 May 2026, 15:07 / Updated Saturday, 09 May 2026 15:23
With Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday on May 8, the British have put a lesser-known story about the famous writer and historian out of mothballs.
Sir David helped change the color of tennis balls more than 50 years ago. These were white in the early decades of racquet history.
Then, the yellow ones were gradually implemented. Or fluorescent green, depending on your perspective. But that's another debate, one in which the legendary Roger Federer entered, who said that tennis balls are yellow.
Sir David Attenborough helped change the color of tennis balls
Back to the color change story. In the 1960s, David Attenborough worked for BBC 2. And in 1967, he called for Wimbledon to be broadcast on color TV in the UK.
This is where the problem came from. Because the game balls were white, like the field lines, they were hard to make out on the broadcast. The viewers could not tell if the players were sending out or in the field.
Sir David suggested changing the color of the balls to improve the quality of broadcasts, but the International Federation began a series of tests to figure out what color would be most suitable, the BBC reported.
Fluorescent yellow won the battle and the first balls of this color were introduced into play at the 1973 US Open.
To top it off, Wimbledon was the last Grand Slam tournament to ditch white balls in favor of yellow balls. It was 1986, 19 years after Attenborough felt the need for a change.
Since then, all tennis competitions are played with colored balls.
