Tennis Court Surfaces and Court Speeds
Earlier this 7 days the US Open up announced that they had been altering the brand of court docket surface area employed at the match for the initial time in much more than 40 years.
The swap sees Flushing Meadows use Laykold tough courts built by Superior Polymer Know-how, replacing the DecoTurf that experienced been in use since 1978.
This change in New York follows on from Melbourne’s change previously in the yr. The Australian Open up moved surface area supplier to GreenSet All over the world for 2020 away from California Sporting activities, who they experienced employed since 2008.
We’ve also seen various ball variations in modern years with Dunlop striking a massive deal to supply the Australian Open up Ball and Wilson replacing Babolat as the French Open up Ball.
With that in thoughts, what other court docket surfaces and tennis balls are currently in use on the ATP tour? Are we moving even further more in direction of surface area homogenisation and just one particular or two suppliers dominating? Let us just take a glimpse.
Grand Slam Court Surfaces, Court Velocity and Tennis Balls
Tournament
Supplier
Surface area
ITF Court Tempo Score
Ball Applied
Australian Open up
Greenset All over the world
Australian Open up GreenSet
Group 4 – Medium-Quick
Dunlop Australian Open up
French Open up
Supersol
Purple Clay
Group 1 – Slow
Wilson French Open up
Wimbledon
Mom Mother nature
one hundred% Perennial Ryegrass
N/A
Slazenger Wimbledon
US Open up
Superior Polymer Know-how
Laykold Cushion In addition Method
Group 2 – Medium-Slow
Wilson US Open up
ATP Masters a thousand Court Surfaces, Court Velocity and Tennis Balls
Tournament
Supplier
Surface area
ITF Court Tempo Score
Ball Applied
Indian Wells
California Sporting activities Surfaces
Plexipave IW
Group 2 – Medium-Slow
HEAD Penn
Miami Masters
Superior Polymer Know-how
Laykold Cushion In addition
Group 2 – Medium-Slow
HEAD Penn
Monte Carlo
Terre Davis S.a.s.
Purple Clay
Group 1 – Slow
Dunlop Fort Clay Court
Madrid Open up
Celabasa Sport
Purple Clay
Group 1 – Slow
Dunlop Fort Clay Court
Rome Masters
Terre Davis S.a.s.
Purple Clay
Group 1 – Slow
Dunlop Fort Clay Court
Rogers Cup
California Sporting activities Surfaces
DecoTurf II
Group three – Medium
HEAD Penn
Cincinnati Masters
California Sporting activities Surfaces
DecoTurf II
Group three – Medium
HEAD Penn
Shanghai Masters
California Sporting activities Surfaces
DecoTurf II
Group three – Medium
Dunlop
Paris Masters
Greenset All over the world
Greenset Grand Prix
Group three – Medium
HEAD Penn
ATP Finals
Greenset All over the world
Greenset Grand Prix
Group three – Medium
Dunlop
ATP five hundred Court Surfaces, Court Velocity and Tennis Balls
Tournament
Supplier
Surface area
ITF Court Tempo Score
Ball Applied
Rotterdam
Greenset All over the world
Greenset Grand Prix
Group three – Medium
Technifibre X A single
Rio Open up
Clay
Group 1 – Slow
HEAD Penn
Dubai
California Sporting activities Surfaces
DecoTurf II
Group three – Medium
Dunlop Australian Open up
Acapulco
California Sporting activities Surfaces
Plexipave
Group 1 – Slow
Wilson US Open up
Barcelona
Celabasa Sport
Clay
Group 1 – Slow
Dunlop Fort Clay Court
Halle
Mom Mother nature
Grass
Mysterious
Slazenger Wimbledon
Queens
Mom Mother nature
Grass
Mysterious
Slazenger Wimbledon
Hamburg
Clay
Group 1 – Slow
Tretorn
Washington
California Sporting activities Surfaces
DecoColor
Group 4: Medium-rapidly
HEAD Penn
Beijing
California Sporting activities Surfaces
DecoTurf
Group three – Medium
HEAD Penn
Tokyo
California Sporting activities Surfaces
DecoTurf
Group three – Medium
Dunlop
Basel
Greenset All over the world
Greenset Grand Prix
Group three – Medium
Dunlop
Vienna
California Sporting activities Surfaces
Rebound Ace Synpave
Group 2 – Medium-Slow
Dunlop
What Other Styles of Court Surfaces are Applied Across the Planet?
Tennis is in all probability one particular of the couple of online games in the earth that is performed on a range of surfaces be it grass, clay or tough courts every of people surfaces has more compact subsets built up from diverse materials like concrete, synthetic grass and acrylic.
All court docket surfaces go by way of a demanding testing technique prior to they can be accepted as an formal surface area by the ITF, the tests just take into consideration friction, vitality restitution, topography and regularity.
The forms of Tennis Court formally in use throughout the earth are:
Acrylic / Polyurethane
Synthetic Clay
Synthetic Grass
Asphalt
Carpet
Clay
Hybrid Clay
Concrete
Grass
Other, e.g. tiles, wooden, canvas and modular devices.
How is the Velocity of a Tennis Court Surface area Calculated?
The ITF measure the velocity of a surface area making use of a process termed Court Tempo Score or CPR for short. Any court docket that is employed for a match has it’s possess one of a kind Court Tempo Score.
The Court Tempo Score System measures the effect the surface area has on the tennis ball which once again normally takes into account friction, which seems to be at how a great deal the balls velocity variations soon after it has strike the surface area and also vertical restitution which things in the time concerning successive bounces.
The CPR test wants various apparatus to be carried out which includes some thing to fire out a tennis ball at a set velocity this sort of as an air cannon and then a piece of tools acknowledged as a Sestée, pictured earlier mentioned.
I is not going to go into the complexities of how it performs, but generally, the Sestée employs laser technologies in its two packing containers that can reconstruct the trajectory of the ball and work out rate. The ball is produced from the cannon at 30m/s and at a 16° angle with no spin staying imparted on it.
The Sestée can measure the adhering to:
Vix = horizontal inbound velocity (m/s)
Viy = vertical inbound velocity (m/s)
Vfx = horizontal outbound velocity (m/s)
Vfy = vertical outbound velocity (m/s)
e = coefficient of restitution (COR)
μ = coefficient of friction (COF)
T = indicate ball temperature for test site/sample (°C)
c = temperature coefficient (.003)
eT= modified COR for temperature T
a = rate notion continuous (a hundred and fifty)
b = indicate coefficient of restitution for all surface area forms (.eighty one)
CPR = Court Tempo Score
in which:
The moment the rate of the courts has been calculated, they are put into types:
Group
Court Tempo Score
Group 1: Slow
≤ 29
Group 2: Medium-sluggish
30-34
Group three: Medium
35-39
Group 4: Medium-rapidly
40-forty four
Group five: Quick
≥ 45
What is Court Tempo Index?
Court Tempo Index is a wholly independent system of measuring court docket velocity and arrives directly from Hawkeye.
Applying their triangulation camera process, they can work out the velocity from in match engage in.
CPI shows the real velocity of the courts as it’s calculated for the duration of real matches on the primary exhibit courts during the match to deliver an regular more than seven times.
CPI is calculated from the adhering to:
CPI=one hundred(1-μ)+a hundred and fifty(.eighty one-e)
Exactly where μ is the coefficient of friction
e is the coefficient of restitution
Yet again make sure you keep in mind below CPR = an ITF velocity rating given to surfaces in a lab. CPI = court docket velocity calculated from Hawkeye information from the primary exhibit courts for the duration of a match.
Illustrations of Court Tempo Index
Speeds in 2016
Speeds in 2017
The Australian Open up is not mentioned below, but it was rated at 40.
More Studying
How to Address the Court Velocity Challenge
Most players and lovers are acutely informed that the surfaces have slowed down more than the years. This done for a range of reasons but the primary one particular is to do with the length of matches and Television set funds.
The video clip below from 2013 talks about this at the fifty-next mark:
My viewpoint is that there wants to be much more range, so players have to adapt. A single solution would be that an outdoors system predetermines the velocity of the court docket at any given match and it cannot change yr on yr or at the discretion of the match organisers.
So as an case in point, the US Open up has to engage in at a set velocity every yr, and it cannot fall below or exceed an agreed threshold.
There’d be no much more putting much more sand into the Laykold combination to make the surface area rougher it’d be built the similar every yr for all of the courts at Flushing Meadows. And it’d be a rapidly tough court docket, as it really should be.
By making use of that approach, you would be able to have a extensive range of court docket speeds on tour. With the appropriate regulations in area and setting up, it’d be attainable to have courts ranging from one particular close of the spectrum to the other during the yr.
This allows players to be analyzed on a range of surfaces of which some engage in tremendous speedy, some engage in in-concerning, some bounce superior, some bounce minimal and some engage in slowly. The vital is range, and I assume you will only get that with some form of regulation in area.
Commonly Questioned Thoughts
Some popular issue I’ve gained soon after writing various posts about court docket velocity and surfaces more than the years.
What is the ITF Court Tempo Score?
The ITF classifies surfaces into one particular of 5 types in accordance to its Court Tempo Score: 1 – Slow, 2 – Medium-sluggish, three – Medium, 4 – Medium-rapidly, five – Quick.
This is not a measure of the velocity of the court docket at the match it is employed it is purely the velocity of the surface area when it goes by way of classification.
For case in point, if I develop a surface area termed Great Velocity Plus and I want to be classified by the ITF, I will submit specifics of the surface area and supply a sample of it to be analyzed to obtain its court docket rate rating.
A surface area kind can have several classifications to present a much more substantial offering for prospective buyers. Laykold, for case in point, has the Cushion In addition surface area readily available in Group 2, Group three and Group 4.
You can see an case in point of a surface area classification certification below.
How Do Tournaments Decide Court Velocity?
Tournaments will initial seek a court docket supplier to lay the courts for their match. For case in point, the US Open up has chosen a firm termed Superior Polymer Know-how for 2020.
The preference is typically established by the surfaces the supplier makes or has entry to. In the case of the US Open up, Laykold is the surface area of preference.
From there it’s a case of the match and the supplier liaising to deliver a surface area that plays at the velocity a match would like.
A excellent case in point below is Miami, which like the US Open up is performed on the Laykold Cushion In addition Method. They wanted a surface area that experienced a very similar velocity to other ITF three Medium Tempo-Score tournaments.
The supplier then customises its product combination and installation to tweak the ball velocity to get the wanted consequence. This is done by altering the underlying levels of court docket and the topcoat, which has sand particles in which affect ball velocity.
The vital takeaway below is that surfaces can be altered noticeably in velocity and they do not just come as an out of the box solution that plays in accordance to their ITF rating.
Are All Clay Courts The Exact same?
All clay courts at tour-stage are typically the similar as they’re manufactured from pink brick dust. Nevertheless the way they’re laid, the substrate and the underlying surface area can differ.
For case in point, the French Open up has the adhering to composition:
Redbrick dust: 1 – 2 mm
Crushed white limestone: 6 – 7 cm
Clinker (coal residue): 7 – 8 cm
Crushed gravel: at least 30 cm
Drain
Not every surface area employs this ballast, and not every court docket is laid in the similar region. Some regions have superior normal drainage, diverse soil, no want for textile sheets to stop weed advancement and many others. which all have an effect on how a court docket plays.
At the leisure stage, clay courts are laid in a range of means, typically to lessen maintenance expenses. For case in point, in Europe, the Purple In addition process is commonplace, which employs several levels of loaded carpet offering the similar taking part in houses as a classic clay court docket.
Why Do Tournaments Use Various Tennis Balls?
The motive tournaments use diverse balls is purely down to sponsorship reasons. Tournaments are free to strike specials with whichever suppliers they want.
The Australian Open up signed a deal with Dunlop in 2018 for them to be the supplier of the Australian Open up Ball, reducing ties with Wilson who experienced provided the ball for various years.
Despite the fact that all balls employed on tour have to have a stage of uniformity, and regularity in functionality. They do engage in in a different way some are lighter, some have diverse felt, some fluff up much more.
This variations their velocity by way of the air, how a great deal humidity they take in, their longevity, and how they react with the strings. Many players believe altering balls concerning tournaments can lead to harm.
How Generally Do Tournaments Improve Surfaces and Balls?
Most contracts for surfaces tend to run at all around the 4 or five-yr mark and are renewed in most scenarios. Decoturf, for case in point, was employed at the US Open up for 41 years prior to they switched.
Balls do change somewhat much more usually, and this is typically due to the fact of player suggestions and tournaments usually change when the minimum amount contract expression is more than.
Just take the French Open up ball which was provided by Dunlop until eventually 2011, it then adjusted to Babolat which wasn’t also properly gained from the players but they stuck with it. Nevertheless, Wilson is the new provider of Roland Garros tennis balls from 2020 onwards.
On the flip facet, Slazenger has been the supplier of the Wimbledon ball since 1902, in all probability the longest partnership deal in the history of any activity.
Bought any concerns or details of see about court docket surfaces, the velocity of the courts or the balls in use? Allow me know in the responses.
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