From Clay to Pavement: The ACE'98 Innovation

Every year in France, 14 million tennis balls end up in the trash. While essential on the court, they are an environmental disaster: their lifespan is ridiculously short (barely 30 to 60 minutes of play for professionals!) due to the rapid loss of their bounce. As a result, 97% of them are immediately incinerated or buried in landfills, where they will take nearly 400 years to decompose, releasing microplastics and methane.

Faced with this ecological absurdity, we decided to transform this ephemeral waste into a sustainable product. In collaboration with several tennis clubs in the Vizela region of Portugal, located just a few kilometers from our workshops, we have established a short-circuit collection system.

The collected used balls are meticulously ground into very fine particles. This new powder is then fused with recycled synthetic rubber, then dyed and injected directly into the mold to form the thick sole and logo of the ACE'98.

Giving a desirable second life to an object destined for destruction is the very essence of the ACE'98. Past shapes the future.