Summer Sports - Tennis
John and David Lawrence
Year award. Moving forward, the team is aiming to capitalise on the momentum generated to continue to develop the courts and the site to achieve the club’s lofty ambitions. Hopefully, by documenting and sharing
our progress going forward, we can be of help to others in our field, as well as the wider industry. We entered 2015 with a number of major
projects to complete through the early part of the year, ensuring we stay extremely busy throughout the winter and into spring! With four American clay courts to renovate, the best part of forty mature trees to plant, around one-hundred-and-fifty pieces of patio furniture to sand and oil, plus vast areas to prepare ready for sowing with wildflower seed, we have certainly been busy! All of this has come on top of our normal day-to-day
work maintaining the site and managing the championship grass courts. Our clay courts benefitted from a mild autumn, with some decent periods of dry weather, meaning they stayed open right up until the start of December. This was excellent for our members as it meant more play time on one of the most popular surfaces here at the club; however, it shortened our window for renovating these courts over the winter. Nonetheless, we dived into this project late last year and are well on course to have renovations completed by the start of April when the courts are opened back up. The four courts have the surface scarified, using clay lutes, to remove any debris and contaminants in the top layer. This in itself is a very labour intensive process, taking around two days for three people to
complete a court. Once courts are scarified, they are then dressed by hand with new clay, ensuring levels are correct and that the surface plays true. Rolling is then carried out in the run up to the start of the season to get the new clay to ameliorate into the profile effectively. Of course, it is worth noting that the challenge does not stop there. Right through the playing season these courts have to be carefully managed, ensuring irrigation levels are optimised to ensure the courts play well and are safe. At the same time, regular brushing has to be undertaken to remove any surface debris, whilst chemical treatments can sometimes be necessitated by invasion of problems such as moss and algae. The end of the renovation of these courts certainly won’t lead to any down time in maintaining them! We have also spent the early part of the
PC APRIL/MAY 2015 I 73
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156