I guess maybe there's a difference between height and speed? The COR I'm quoting states that the ball's vertical speed after the bounce will be approximately three fourths of it's vertical drop speed.
So I guess the question I'm still left with is this:
If I drop a standard tennis ball...
Right, I'm with you that far. The increased friction of clay courts help to 'redirect' the forward momentum of the ball upward causing a higher bounce (sorry for the lay terms, I'm no physicist).
But what if the ball has no forward momentum?
Let me explain what I fail to understand:
I'm...
I'm trying to understand why tennis balls have a higher bounce on clay courts than on hard courts.
I understand that the amount of friction is greater on clay so as to slow the ball's vertical speed down and create a steeper angle of reflection.
But I don't see how that explains why the...