Racquetball is a racquet sport and a team sport played with a hollow rubber ball on an indoor or outdoor court. Joseph Sobek invented the modern sport of racquetball in 1950, adding a stringed racquet to paddleball in order to increase velocity and control. Unlike most racquet sports, such as tennis and badminton, there is no net to hit the ball over, and, unlike squash, no tin to hit the ball above. Also, the court's walls, floor, and ceiling are legal playing surfaces, with the exception of court-specific designated hinders being out-of-bounds. Racquetball is played between various players on a team who try to bounce the ball with the racquet onto the ground so it hits the wall, so that an opposing team’s player cannot bounce it back to the wall.
A racket or racquet is a sporting equipment used to strike a ball or shuttlecock back-and-forth in games such as tennis, badminton, squash, racquetball and padel. The typical basic structure of a racket consists of a widened distal end known as the head, an elongated handle known as the grip, and a reinforced connection between the head and handle known as the throat or heart.
Yonex Co., Ltd. is a Japanese sports equipment manufacturing company. Yonex produces equipment and apparel for tennis, badminton, golf, and running.
American Machine and Foundry was one of the United States' largest recreational equipment companies, with diversified products as disparate as garden equipment, atomic reactors, and yachts.
The Wilson Sporting Goods Company is an American sports equipment manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois. Wilson makes equipment for many sports, among them baseball, badminton, American football, basketball, fastpitch softball, golf, racquetball, soccer, squash, tennis, pickleball and volleyball.
Howard Head was an American aeronautical engineer who is credited with the invention of the first commercially successful aluminum laminate skis and the oversized tennis racket. Head founded the ski -making firm, Head, in 1950. Later, he became chairman of Prince Manufacturing Inc. The U.S. patents for the laminate skis and oversized tennis racket are in the name of Howard Head. He graduated from Harvard College in 1936.
Prince Global Sports, LLC is an American sporting goods manufacturing company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1970, Prince's range of products includes rackets, footwear, apparel, tennis balls, pickleball paddles, stringing machines, hats and bags.
Frontenis is a sport that is played in a 30 meter pelota court using racquets and rubber balls. It can be played in pairs or singles, but only pairs frontenis is played in international competitions. This sport was developed in Mexico around 1900, and is accredited as a Basque pelota speciality.
In tennis, the strings are the part of a tennis racquet which make contact with the ball. The strings form a woven network inside the head of the racquet. Strings have been made with a variety of materials and possess varying properties that have been measured, such as dynamic stiffness, tension retention, thickness (gauge), string texture, and rebound efficiency.
The Wilson Pro Staff Original, first introduced in 1984 is most known for being the model of racquet used by Pete Sampras. For this reason, it is known as a “Sampo”.
Dunlop Sport is a British sports equipment manufacturing company established in 1910 that focuses on racquet sports, more specifically tennis, squash, padel and badminton. Products by Dunlop Sport include racquets, strings, balls, shuttlecocks, and bags. Sportswear and clothing line includes t-shirts, shorts, skirts, jackets, pants, socks, caps, sneakers, and wristbands.
Hans "Hasse" Alsér was a Swedish international table tennis player and later the head coach of West German (1971–1974) and Swedish (1974–1977) national teams.
Since the sport's inception, the design and manufacture of tennis equipment has been affected by technological advances and regulations. As is common in major sports, regulations became more exacting over time, with improvements affecting the qualities of the tennis racket and the tennis ball.
Ektelon, Inc. is an American manufacturer of equipment for racquetball.
Bud Muehleisen is a dentist in San Diego, California, and a racquetball and paddleball player. A left-handed player, "Dr. Bud" Muehleisen was the first person inducted into the Racquetball Hall of Fame, and is considered the best racquetball player and the best paddleball player of the 1960s era, and one of the best finesse players in the history of either game. The description of his career at the Racquetball Hall of Fame reads:
'Dr. Bud' Muehleisen has sometimes been called the most influential man in racquetball. He began playing paddleball in 1962, won four national titles, then took up paddle rackets in 1969, edging out Brumfield to win one of the first national championships in the sport that would become racquetball. Bud served on the IRA board of directors for seven years as the first Rules Committee chairman and was instrumental in the formation of the game's first rules. He won an unprecedented 41 national titles, was a coach and teacher, a regular contributor of instructional material to early magazines and worked with most of the major equipment manufacturers in developing racquets, balls and other products.
The Head Standard was Howard Head's first successful ski design, and arguably the first modern downhill ski. The Standard used composite construction, with a plywood core sandwiched between aluminum outer skins, steel edges tapering into the core, and a hard plastic base, sidewalls and topsheet. The only major changes in ski materials since the Standard are the use of fibreglass structural layers in place of the aluminum layers, and substitution of expanded plastic foam for the wooden core.
Penn Racquet Sports, Inc. is a subsidiary of Head N.V. that manufactures tennis balls and racquetballs. Penn was founded in 1910 as Pennsylvania Rubber Company of America, Inc. in Jeannette, Pennsylvania. Penn was acquired by Head N.V. in 1999 and is currently headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona.
Donnay Sports is a sports equipment brand currently owned by Frasers Group. The company was founded in 1910 by Emile Donnay and was based in Couvin, Belgium. Donnay manufactured wooden tennis rackets from 1934, and by the 1970s was the largest manufacturer of tennis rackets in the world. However, the company failed to adapt to the new market for graphite rackets, and entered administration in 1988. After a succession of owners, the brand was eventually sold to Sports Direct International, who continue to license the use of the brand worldwide.
The Bentley Fortissimo tennis racquet of 1972 was the first oversize tennis racquet to be produced and demonstrated publicly. Prior to its introduction, all tennis racquets were much smaller in terms of the stringbed size, measured in square inches. Today, that size, known as standard, is not used by any professional player for professional match play.
ProKennex is a Taiwanese manufacturer of racquet sports equipment for tennis, squash, badminton, racquetball, and pickleball. The company enjoyed wide global distribution in the 1980s, when manufacturing in Taiwan was booming due to domestic economic conditions. Parent company Kunnan Enterprise Ltd. has faced financial difficulties since the mid 1990s, leading to a contraction of the ProKennex name globally. Today, the company focuses on a niche set of consumers interested in technology advancements in racquet sports. The company focuses on this aspect of its products by promoting itself as a "science and design company", rather than a standard racket manufacturer.
$375.4 million (2014) [2] 
$2.8 million (2014) [2] 
