British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

thegingerlightbulb · Intermediate Club Player

Wimbledon courts are like clay courts!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

I like to follow my own eyes on these things - Ive always felt that queens and Eastbourne and Wimbledon all play differently with Queens zippier and faster and Wimbledon softer and slower but changing as the fortnight moves on and the grass gets played on. But this year, what Ive seen, the courts have , to me, been quick and hard from the get go. I think players confuse a harder court with being slower, like clay. I dont think thats correct. From what Ive seen, the courts are hard and pacy and some of the mens serving has been massively quicker; the lack of serve volley isnt due to the harder surface, its that there isnt time to follow straight in, if the ball comes back, its with extra pace and the server cant react. So they stay back a shot or two before coming forward.

Surface speed stats showed Queens was estimated as the fastest court so far this season, so grass there was playing quick for the mens event. Which was was week 2 of a mixed tournie, with harder courts than normal. Faster but harder. The dry weather this year, I think, has displayed in harder courts from the outset- not slower.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

This is a surface speed analysis from tennis abstract

tennisabstract.com/reports/atp_surface_speed.html

They use mens ace count for the field entered, relative to the number of aces youd expect that field to serve. If the draw has a bunch of slow servers and they serve more aces than youd normally expect during the event, the argument is the court is playing quickly. Theyve run these stats for years and theyre pretty accurate

tennisabstract.com/reports/atp_surface_speed.html

Youll see here that Basel indoor event is rated top; it always is, pretty much, the quicker court. The tour finals, Events like Shanghai are always up there. And the clay events are near the bottom. The comparison of aces to expected aces for the field entered is what is being used a score of 1 shows the event is an average speed where the ace count was as expected. Queens 2025 is second on the list and usually shows around 1.4 or so. Wimbledon 2024 is showing as something like 1.13, where the ace count suggests the court is faster than an average court.

Its not an exact science but it shows a) Wimbledon generally is faster than average b) queens is faster than Wimbledon c) clay is slower than hard, hard and grass generally are similarly speedy though. D) Eastbourne is slower by a long way and my view is that this is due to the wind which slows down the serve and speed

Wimbledon 2025 stats yet to be produced, obviously

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Harri H also commenting on slowness of courts pre Wimbledon

The courts at Wimbledon felt really slow again compared to the grass courts of previous weeks. The grass is velvety soft and somehow denser, and it was also cut a little longer before the tournament, perhaps on purpose, to protect the surface of the court. But every year it surprises me how slow a grass court can feel. The same Slazenger balls are used throughout the grass season, so you can't tell the difference between the balls, but of course on a natural surface the temperature and humidity also affect the speed of the game and the behavior of the ball.