Friday, October 8, 2010

Different Types of Surfaces Used for Playing Tennis

All must be familiar with famous sport, Tennis. Every year lot of tournaments will be conducted among the players of different nations. But, one might not be familiar with the different types of courts which are used for playing tennis.

The place where the tennis game is played is termed as the Tennis court. Generally, the shape of this court will be rectangular in shape with a low net placed at the center. The same courts will be used for both the doubles as well as for the singles.


The dimensions of the court are as follows. The length of the court is 78 feet with 39 feet on each side. But, the width for singles and doubles will vary and when we take the case of singles 27 feet will be the width. 36 feet will be the width for doubles matches. At a distance of 21 feet the service line is kept.


Depending on the materials used there are four main types of courts. They are clay courts, hard courts, grass courts and carpet courts. Depending on the characteristics of the surface, the style of playing will be vary.


The major grand slam tournaments U.S Open and Australian Open is using hard courts as of now. French Open uses clay as the surface. Each and every time Wimbledon will be played on grass surface alone.


Clay courts: This court is made of crushed shale, stone or brick. When compared to the grass courts or hard courts, the clay courts slows down the ball with a high bounce. When compared with the other types of courts, construction cost for the clay courts is cheap but the maintenance cost will be more.


Grass Courts: On a very hard packed soil, grass will be grown. Depending on the health of the grass the bounces varies. When compared to the hard courts, the surface is less firm and more slippery. Due to high maintenance costs they are rarely used.


Hard Courts: When compared to clay, they are much more faster, but where as when compared with grass courts they are less faster. The speed of the ball varies depending on the amount of the paint added to the sand. Acrylic Hard court is used by U.S open and the synthetic hard court is used for Australian Open. These hard courts are considered as the fast tennis courts.


Carpet courts: This is a removable court covering. This is installed for conducting the tennis events temporarily.


Thus, these are the main surfaces which are used for playing tennis.

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