Court Speeds and Conditions

spud · Challenger qualifying

Court Speeds and Conditions

steven · Tennis legend

The head groundsman at the AELTC last year claimed the courts weren't actually faster, just harder, so that the balls bounce higher and are thus easier to return than they used to be.. He claimed the aim was to make the courts more durable:

http://www.thetennisspace.com/wimbledon-groundsman-its-a-myth-that-the-grass-is-slower/

If you are interested in court speed, HeavyTopspin have ranked the ATP main tour events using ace counts relative to the same players' ace counts in other events:

http://heavytopspin.com/2012/11/07/the-speed-of-every-surface-redux/

As you have acknowledged, court speed depends on a lot more than just the basic court surface, though what is a bit odd (or perhaps it's just a case of selective memory!) the speed of the courts always seemed to be a lot more correlated to surface type if you go back a decade or more.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, I do think court speed seemed much more dictated by surface in the past. And I have heard many commentators suggest say that Rolanf Garros has indeed got quicker and Wimbledon slower with consequently very much less disparity.

That is certainly my impression, though maybe emphasised by the vast majority of players now playing from the back of the court on all surfaces.

I have mixed views on Wimbledon. I personally like the play we generally have now as distinct to big serving and volleying and very little rallies, and if the courts and / or balls have aided this, so much the better for my tennis enjoyment.

However, I can recognise a case for some real disparity among the Slams, and certainly some significant difference in speeds should probably be one. Ideally you want one of the US Open and Aussie Open ( probably the US Open ) being significantly faster than the other. At least the surfaces for the other two Slams will always offer some distinction.

korriban · Challenger level

There's a Challenger currently in play in Sarajevo, which in my opinion is a good example of a surface which ruins the game. Its an indoor hardcourt, not sure which of the many varieties. Clearly very fast indeed.

Poor old Jiri Veseley, Oli's old doubles partner, former junior world number 1, and now the highest ranked male teenager in the world (inside 250) was playing, so I had a 10 minute peek at yesterday's live stream. He lost in 3 sets, of which 2 were tiebreaks, to a much lower ranked player with a decent serve. Aces all over the place. Average rally length, 3 or 4 shots. No atmosphere. Boring as hell. the clearly better player lost.

Dustin Brown has just hit 10 aces in a set there. Lots of shock losses for seeded players against journeymen with big serves, on good serving days. Honestly, I don't know why people would pay money to watch, and judging by the crowds, they agreed with me.

A like a variety of surfaces, but anything too fast or too slow becomes tedious, albeit in different ways. In that sense, I really like what has been done to Wimbledon compared to 10 years ago.....we get to see some actual tennis, rather than serving battles......if that means serve and volley is the exception rather than the rule, fantastic!

indiana · Tennis legend

It is interesting the number of folk I have read in various places expressing an active dislike of much of the "old" serve / volley days and limited rallies in men's matches at Wimbledon.

The very top players could provide pretty interesting matches for me, but a lot of the lesser talented bashers competing against each other not so, and it was great when my tennis horizons broadened and I got to see much more generally proper tennis matches being played on other surfaces.

RJA · Hall of fame

The big problem I have is the way that surfaces at the highest level have become so homogenised. All 4 Grand Slams and most of the masters series events are now played on relatively slow courts. Now I don't want to see matches that are just a serving contest but I do want to see matches where there is a reasonable chance of being able to hit winners and where aggressive play stands a fair chance of being successful.

Fortunately lower down the pecking order there is still good surface variety. The UK hard court futures have a good mix of pace and some have a really nice balance where a good net player can succeed by serve and volley and frequently coming into net but they have to get it right or face being passed with ease.

RBBOT · Futures qualifying

Of course, for real problems with the surface, you have to switch sports and take a look at this year's 6 nations.

paultim374 · Newbie

Dustin Brown has just hit 10 aces in a set there. Lots of shock losses for seeded players against journeymen with big serves, on good serving days. Honestly, I don't know why people would pay money to watch, and judging by the crowds, they agreed with me.
That is certainly my impression, though maybe emphasised by the vast majority of players now playing from the back of the court on all surfaces.

JonH · All-time great

There was some recent discussion around court speed at IW and Miami - I found this article below which looks at court speeds at all ATP Masters and Slam events in 2017 and a little before:

www.perfect-tennis.com/court-speed-2017/

Based on this it shows that the latter season Masters events in Paris, Shanghai, London and then early season Melbourne are the fastest courts, with clay clearly slowest; IW and Miami are both above clay but slower than the other hard court events in general.

thought folks might be interested - never seen anything that looks at ATP 250/500 events, I always think Queens would prove to be the fastest grass event but no way of knowing.

On clay, i thought Madrid played fastest due to the altitude but this doesnt suggest it does

JonH · All-time great

And this shows how it is all calculated by Hawkeye

www.perfect-tennis.com/court-pace-index-explained/

Interesting how hardcourts speed up over the event as they become less grainy, I had never thought of that although it is obvious.

Also interesting how the London O2 event speed has increased significantly in the past few seasons compared to the earlier days of the event.

JonH · All-time great

...I have also found this partial analysis of ATP500 events showing Washington is fastest, sadly Queens isnt included

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JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Tennis Abstract have carried out an updated analysis of ATP court speeds. They use ace percentage as a proxy (detail is described in this article). The O2 Tour Finals are right up there as one of the fastest around, the DC Finals less so. The approach takes into account the number of aces each player in the event typically serves and then uses that adjustment (ie if someone served 5% more aces than they normally do, that indicates a faster surface than they normally play on) in a model to show how the event itself rates. Not perfect but interesting. The British grass court events are all measured around the 1-1.1 score level suggesting they are not much if at all above average speed and certainly lower than the other grass events over the world.

Their narrative is below - the 2nd number (eg 1.57 for Chendu) is the actual measure.

The Speed of Every Surface, 2019 Edition (from Tennis Abstract)
Fans are constantly talking about surface speed I have written a lot about surface speed yet somehow, I havent published complete surface speed numbers for three years. Time to remedy that.

If youre interested in the long-form explanation of how these numbers work, what their limitations are, and so on, check out my post from three years ago. Ill give a brief overview here, as well:

I rate the playing speed of every ATP surface using ace rate as a proxy for surface characteristics. Ace rate doesnt tell the whole story, of course, but as youll see, its a pretty good first- or second-order approximation. For each tournament, I look at the ace rates in every match, and control for the servers and returners in those matches. (The ace rate for every John Isner match will be high, but that doesnt necessarily mean the surface is fast.) I say playing speed because ace rate depends on a wide range of variables (heat, humidity, balls, etc), so it reflects how the court playsnot anything inherent about the physical makeup of the surface itself.

The main advantages of this approach are that it is simple to understand (more aces = higher rating!), and that we can calculate it with limited informationdata that is available for ATP matches back to the early 1990s. Court Pace Index and other Hawkeye-based metrics surely have a lot more to add, but they require much more sophisticated toolstools that federations and tours arent about to share with lowly fans like us.

A tour-average surface rates 1.0. The usual range for tour events is between 0.50 (slow clay) and 1.50 (fast hard or grass). The following table shows the 2017-19 speed ratings for all tour events on the 2019 calendar, including the Davis Cup Finals:

Tournament Surface 2019 Ace% 2019 2018 2017
Chengdu Hard 14.8% 1.57 1.05 1.16
Antalya Grass 14.6% 1.47 1.25 1.74
Tour Finals Hard 11.7% 1.31 1.12 0.75
Marseille Hard 11.7% 1.29 1.21 1.34
Newport Grass 12.7% 1.27 0.87 0.76
Australian Open Hard 12.9% 1.27 1.16 1.14
Brisbane Hard 13.3% 1.26 1.35 0.99
Atlanta Hard 14.3% 1.25 1.01 0.86
Shanghai Hard 13.0% 1.24 1.17 1.53
Sao Paulo Clay 9.8% 1.24 0.89 0.92
Halle Grass 12.8% 1.23 1.16 1.18
Stuttgart Grass 14.5% 1.23 1.42 1.27
Sofia Hard 11.1% 1.21 1.14 1.33
Antwerp Hard 11.2% 1.21 1.25 1.06
Davis Cup Finals Hard 11.9% 1.20
Metz Hard 13.5% 1.20 1.51 1.34
Paris Bercy Hard 11.9% 1.19 1.06 1.03
Montpellier Hard 13.4% 1.17 1.13 1.11
Vienna Hard 11.4% 1.16 1.16 0.98
New York Hard 17.0% 1.16 1.05

Tournament Surface 2019 Ace% 2019 2018 2017
Winston Salem Hard 12.1% 1.15 1.01 1.07
Basel Hard 14.2% 1.14 1.03 0.77
Beijing Hard 11.6% 1.12 1.03 0.91
Washington Hard 15.5% 1.11 0.99 1.11
Moscow Hard 13.5% 1.11 1.21 1.45
Delray Beach Hard 13.9% 1.10 0.98 0.97
Doha Hard 10.0% 1.10 0.88 1.02
St. Petersburg Hard 8.4% 1.09 1.13 0.80
Stockholm Hard 11.2% 1.08 1.03 1.05
Tokyo Hard 11.6% 1.08 1.34 1.18
London Grass 12.8% 1.07 1.25 1.20
Auckland Hard 10.7% 1.06 1.17 1.11
Pune Hard 14.8% 1.05 0.99
Cincinnati Hard 11.6% 1.04 0.98 1.22
Canada Hard 10.8% 1.03 1.17 0.97
Dubai Hard 8.4% 1.02 1.04 0.91
Eastbourne Grass 13.2% 0.99 0.94 1.00
Wimbledon Grass 10.5% 0.99 1.14 1.03
Sydney Hard 9.3% 0.98 1.25 1.10
Zhuhai Hard 6.9% 0.97

Tournament Surface 2019 Ace% 2019 2018 2017
Marrakech Clay 8.4% 0.97 0.62 0.77
US Open Hard 10.2% 0.97 0.98 0.96
s'Hertogenbosch Grass 10.2% 0.95 0.99 0.89
Cordoba Clay 6.9% 0.94
Rotterdam Hard 8.0% 0.90 1.13 1.09
Lyon Clay 9.9% 0.90 0.89 0.85
Gstaad Clay 5.6% 0.88 1.16 0.92
Acapulco Hard 11.1% 0.86 1.03 0.92
Miami Masters Hard 9.5% 0.86 0.78 0.84
Los Cabos Hard 6.5% 0.85 0.80 1.28
Geneva Clay 6.6% 0.81 1.04 0.85
Bastad Clay 7.1% 0.80 0.72 0.88
Kitzbuhel Clay 6.3% 0.77 0.84 1.02
Hamburg Clay 7.7% 0.76 0.69 1.02
Indian Wells Hard 7.6% 0.76 0.84 1.03
Houston Clay 9.2% 0.75 0.81 0.94
Madrid Clay 7.0% 0.71 0.84 0.89
Roland Garros Clay 7.0% 0.71 0.72 0.76
Rome Clay 7.0% 0.69 0.69 0.85
Munich Clay 7.0% 0.67 0.74 0.99

Tournament Surface 2019 Ace% 2019 2018 2017
Umag Clay 5.6% 0.65 0.78 0.61
Rio de Janeiro Clay 5.9% 0.63 0.71 0.68
Budapest Clay 7.0% 0.62 0.62 0.59
Barcelona Clay 5.6% 0.59 0.57 0.55
Estoril Clay 4.7% 0.54 0.58 0.53
Buenos Aires Clay 3.9% 0.52 0.65 0.88
Monte Carlo Clay 4.7% 0.50 0.56 0.50
The Tour Finals played as fast as it has in yearsthe 2014-16 ratings were 0.89 and 1.06suggesting either that the organizers finally laid down a proper hard court, or that 15 matches is an insufficient sample. (It certainly isnt ideal, and the same can be said for 28- and 32-draw tourneys.)

The Davis Cup Finals played more like a typical indoor hard court. At the other extreme, Indian Wells was particularly slow this year, even by its own clay-like standards. At least at a few events, surface speed convergence may have slowed down.