 Official tennis court dimension
Added: 04/12/2006 |
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Nowadays, it is International Tennis Federation who governs the body of tennis and whose responsibility to determine the Rules of Tennis. Such rules encompass all possible regulation on the game of tennis including official tennis court dimension, tennis court marks and so on. Rules of Tennis are published by ITF annually.
Tennis is a racquet game which belongs to the category of racquet sports. Tennis can be played between either two teams ("doubles") or two players ("singles"). Since tennis is a racquet sport players use stringed racquets to hit a ball (which, by the way, is rubber, hollow and covered in felt) over the net into the opponent's half of a court. Sometimes in some places tennis is called lawn tennis in order to tell it apart from real tennis which is also known as court tennis or royal tennis and is older type of the game played indoors on absolutely different kind of a court. Tennis was originated in England in the 19th century and spread first all through the English-speaking people, especially among the upper human classes.
Today tennis is one of Olympic sports played by all ages and at all levels of society in many countries throughout the world. The rules of the game have remained outstandingly unchanged since the early 19th century. Millions of people are a fond of tennis as a very spectator sport along with millions tennis players. The biggest popularity over the years have gained four Grand Slam tournaments.
Tennis as we know it today is always played on the court that is a flat rectangular surface, usually of clay, grass, or concrete. Tennis court dimension is not a point of preference. Official tennis court dimension is approved by International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is as follows: length of 78 feet (23.77 m), width for single matches of 27 feet (8.23 m), width for doubles matches of 36 feet (10.97 m). To enable players to reach overrun balls additional unoccupied space must be added without affecting tennis court dimension.
Tennis court has to be crossed in the middle by a net. The net must be stretched across the entire width of the court and has to be strictly parallel with the baselines. The net divides the tennis court into two equal parts. The net must be suspended to be 914 mm high in the centre and 1.07 m high near the posts.
There are three basic types of tennis courts deriving from the materials used for the surface of the court. It's worth admitting that each type of surface has its own characteristics on the bounce and speed of the ball. These three major types of courts are: grass court, clay court and hardcourt. The last court type though refers to many different court surfaces ranging from coated asphalt and wooden gymnasium to old-fashioned concrete.
No matter which materials were used to design court surface, proper tennis court dimension is a obligatory. To facilitate understanding of the following information on tennis court demension some basic terminology will be of use. Thus, term baselines denotes the lines at each of the ends of a court while sidelines stand for the lines at the sides of a court. Special court marks in form of additional lines must be painted between the sidelines at the distance of 21 feet from of the sides of a net and parallel with it. Such lines are called service lines. Center service line has to be painted parallel with singles sidelines. Another tennis court marks must divide each baseline in half.
The center mark and center service line must have width of 2 inches (5 cm). All other court lines must be between 1 inch and 2 inches wide, with only exception for the baselines which may be up to 4 inches wide.
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