What Color is a Tennis Ball?

A recent Twitter poll¹ of nearly 30,000 participants, revealed a strong contradiction regarding what color a standard tennis ball was believed to be. The study showed that 52% of the participants saw the ball as green, while 42% saw yellow and 6% saw other. The results of this poll built up so much hype on social media that it became the internet’s next viral debate. Eventually the world’s No. 1 ranked tennis player, Roger Federer, was even polled-

Roger smiled and hesitantly replied, “yellow.” He was right. ²

If Roger had his hands on Konica Minolta’s CM-700d Spectrophotometer, he and his 42% of yellow poll-respondents would have been more confident in their color assessment. Why? The ultra-high precision CM-700d utilizes L*a*b* color space³; L* indicating lightness and a* or b* indicating chromaticity quality amongst coordinates. In a test done⁴ using the CM-700d (along with its color data software), the results clearly indicated that a standard tennis ball is closer to industry standard yellow rather than green, as seen in the data readings.

#tennisballdebate #opticyellow

For more information about Konica Minolta’s CM-700d Spectrophotometer, visit our website.

¹ https://twitter.com/cgpgrey/status/961700363131908096

² https://twitter.com/delaneyanndold/status/975815880268550144

³ Other color spaces include but are not limited to: L*C* h*, XYZ, Yxy

⁴ L*a*b* test was performed using Ceram BCRA Series II tiles