Our resurfacing project for courts 1 - 4 was completed on 25 September 2008 and the courts are once again open for members to play. As you can see from this photo, we decided to go with dark green courts, a light green outer court and white lines... This makes it quite a bit easier to make line calls when the yellow ball strikes the white line, unlike the yellow lines on our old courts.The courts are new and 19 mm thick, so the first thing you notice is that they feel very much more "cushiony" and comfortable to your joints than our old courts which have worn down to around 5 mm and now feel almost like hard courts. This difference in thickness , as well as the fresh sand dressing, makes a slow ball sit up a bit more... so you have plenty of time to hit it... thus, you may describe this surface behaviour as "slow"... However, the material has a lower coefficient of friction than the old courts, and if you whack a serve or a strong shot with a lot of pace, the ball will "shoot" ...the surface can be surprisingly fast and grass-like in that situation... Also, you can "slide" quite well on these courts, even though they are brand new and yet to be "broken in".
Before we laid the new courts, I was a bit concerned about this "slippery-ness" when playing on the courts when they are wet, but I played in the rain yesterday and was delighted to find the footing to be very sure and I had absolutely no sense of it being too slippery or dangerous to play on when wet. Only effect was slightly more tendency of the ball to shoot as described above...
The other thing I was delighted to see was that the ponding situation has been improved immensely on courts 1 - 4... During yesterday's heavy rain, courts 1 - 4 were still playable with very little ponding, while courts 5 - 8 were completely flooded... The only thing i noticed about the new courts is that they have a slight tendancy to trap air and form sort of a blister or bubble underneath...but this is not dangerous, and it quickly disappears about the same time the court drains completely.
Finally, members should be aware that the sand dressing will be an ongoing process. The heavy rains recently will distribute the sand unevenly... We are aware of this and have scheduled the next round of sand dressing for 15 Oct 2008. This will be done during the day and should not affect your club nite play...
Come out and have a hit on the new courts and tell me what you think of them... I'll be delighted to hear your comments!
3 comments:
Ted and the tennis committee,Job well done!!
Ensure job done NOT during club nite,specially when the workers add sand onto the courts.
my joints will last a little longer playing in the new courts. the old courts are repaired sufficiently to be played safely now. thanks for making our past time more enjoyable.
excellent for the arthritis sufferers like me and when are we going to replace the remainder?
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