Tennis ball wasteland? Game grapples with a fuzzy yellow recycling problem

NEW YORK (AP) — Tennis has a fuzzy yellow problem most players don’t think about when they open cans of fresh balls, or when umpires at U.S. Open matches make their frequent requests for “new balls please.” Because tennis balls are extremely hard to recycle and the industry has yet to develop a ball to make that easier, nearly all of the 330 million balls made worldwide each year eventually get chucked in the garbage, with most ending up in landfills. That harsh reality in an age of heightened environmental awareness has sent ball makers, recyclers and the game’s worldwide governing body scrambling for solutions.