Tourna Mini Ballport Tennis Ball Pick Up Hopper

The media could not be loaded. I bought this for practicing my serve. I waffled between the regular and mini. I’m glad I got the mini. It holds 33 balls (10 cans). It is compact and light making it easy to store on a closet shelf, load in the back of a car, or just carry to your local courts. 33 balls is a good amount to serve before forcing one to take a break for ball pick up. If you’re looking for something to help make service practice a little easier, this is it.

I haven't put this to heavy use yet, but for the price I like the design and features so far. The plastic is sturdy and assembly was easy; it arrived in a flat box. If you're good with a screwdriver, there are 8 easy screws to secure the sides together, 4 on each side. 4 additional screws hold the legs' pivot plates in place, 2 screws each side. It stands 29" tall when closed and a little over 30" with the legs opened so no issues there. The two fixed bars on the bottom are spaced perfectly for ball pick-up. The bars on top are a little fidgety, meaning they don't glide perfectly so you might have to use both hands, but their firmness assures me they won't slide apart in transport. Also, the channels for the bars have rounded recesses to click each bar into the closed position. The nicest feature are the designed retention slots on the sides of the box that hold the legs in place when up or down. The legs just "snap" into position and stay in place. My old metal basket was a pain, having to force each leg, one leg at a time, into a holder positioned on the inside of the basket with all the balls in the way. A custom touch -- with the legs in the up position, the handles would clang against each other, so I wrapped them with a couple layers of hockey tape. Nice and quiet and also some added protection on the court when the legs are down. Lastly, the photos show the ballport full with 30 balls. There's probably room for 3 more and 36 would be jammed full.Update Sep 2015: after a full season of use, it finally happened. The crossbars in the bottom of the hopper came out after trying to jam more than 30-31 balls, causing the plastic sides to flex outward. I like to use this for my freshest balls, not totally dead, so when I added a few extra from my bag, this ballport couldn't hold them. So beware, once it looks full it's not worth trying to max out anymore. My worry is that the sides are now flexed out (it is just plastic) permanently and those bars might come loose again with even just a couple extra balls, if I happen to forget. I do consider it a minor design flaw and wish I could screw those bottom bars in place permanently. Maybe some glue? Dropped my review to 4 stars. Otherwise, this is still my go-to hopper for the reasons I posted earlier.

4.0 club player always trying to improve serve....I like this because it's small. It's like the squared off version of the baskets you use to pick up balls but not even that big. I initially thought i would just get a silver pick up basket and leave it in my car. This turned out to be a bit better because it's on a stand so i don't have to lean over to get the balls out when I'm serving.It was easy to put together, holds a decent amount of balls for single practice and you can put it up, break it down easily. I leave it up in a room in the house. When I think I might stop by the park to serve and work on my pronation, I put it in the trunk and off I go. Sure it's not the biggest ball holder and you don't have a huge cart of 300 balls to continuously serve from....but it's also not heavy, you won't wrench your back or shoulder and you can get out the door in a snap.If you need a bigger item because you want more balls, I wouldn't necessarily suggest going up in size of this type of ball holder. At that point I would get the canvas ball cart that kind of origamis out and is on wheels. It's portable, holds a good amount of balls and at that point I think you get a lot more balls/portability for the money.

This hopper is well put together. Not for a club or tennis pro, but for a casual player who wants to pick up balls or have a hopper standing next to them with balls while they practice their serve, it really fits the bill. Requires a little assembly (basically it needs to be held together with screws) but feels solid when put together.

Similar to what other reviewers have mentioned, the quality of construction is just not there. I purchased this a month ago and have used it less than a dozen times; two corners have cracked where joined together by screws. Would be a great little hopper to have if it actually lasted