Tennis ball holder

Claim 1

A tennis ball holder attachable to the garment of a player and constructed and arranged to receive and hold only one tennis ball at a time, comprising a homogeneously integral one-piece body of a plastic material having a retainer ring which is flexible, resilient, formretaining, and can be disposed in a generally horizontal plane with its central axis extending generally vertically, a plurality of discreet and generally circumferentially spaced apart fingers each at its proximal and homogeneously integral with said ring and depending normally generally downwardly from said ring and having its distal end curved generally inwardly of said ring toward its center axis and terminating at a point spaced from said center axis and the distal end of the other of said fingers, each said finger being flexible, resilient, form-retaining, and constructed and arranged so that its distal end, in the unflexed position of such finger, underlies and supports a single tennis ball inserted through said ring and can be yieldably moved away from said center axis to allow the tennis ball to be manually pushed generally downwardly beyond the distal end, out of the holder and into the fingers and hand of a user by pressure manually applied to the top of the tennis ball by the thumb of the same hand of the user extending through said ring, said ring being constructed, arranged, and dimensioned to yieldably permit the tennis ball to pass therethrough and into engagement with said flexible fingers and in its normal unflexed state to retain the tennis ball between said ring and said fingers, and a tab homogeneously integral with said ring and being constructed and arranged for attaching the holder to the garment of a tennis player.