TENNIS
the profile. In dry conditions, like we’ve experienced through April and May, we’re able to irrigate the courts, and then pull the covers on to hold moisture at a desired depth in the profile. This allows us to very precisely control the drying of the courts, and therefore ensure the courts play evenly during the playing season.
This is a particularly effective method with courts like ours, which aren’t constructed evenly. This non-uniform construction means that the courts don’t drain, or dry evenly, and so being able to hold moisture is imperative to building uniform consolidation, and even playing characteristics across the surface. Whilst we can consolidate the courts using a roller, we don’t have the same uniformity of control.
The other challenge not having the tournament rain covers presents is that we lose the ability to ‘greenhouse’ the courts. On a hot day, we can pull the covers on and inflate them to create a microclimate over the court surface. We’ve regularly recorded temperatures under the inflatables of over 40°C, even in April and May. The ability to do this in a year where we’re playing catch
up on autumn renovations is very useful, and so being so far behind going in to the spring this year meant we really could have done with the covers for getting new grass seed through quickly. There is only so much you can do with germination sheets! Despite the lack of rain covers, we made the best of what we had, which included moving around a lot of germination sheets, which got us to a point where, at the start of May, we were ready to start measuring and marking in tennis courts on the grass. At the time, we had no indication that we would be able to open any time soon. However, a sense of optimism, coupled with a desire to be as ready as possible when the go ahead came, meant we were keen to press on with his work. Even with some less than helpful weather in early May, and a reduction in staffing levels whilst several of the team had to self-isolate owing to potential Covid-19 symptoms, by the end of the first full week of May, we had all of our grass courts, apart from Centre Court, marked in.
As it turned out, this was good timing on our part. As we now know, on the Sunday 10th May, Boris Johnson announced that
some restrictions would begin to be eased, and by the following day, it became clear that tennis could resume, under strict controls, on Wednesday 13th May. Fortunately, our keenness to be ready in advance paid off, as the Prime Minister hadn’t given us much time to prepare otherwise!
The Monday morning saw us drawing up a list of jobs that were still outstanding which needed completing prior to re-opening. We then found ourselves parked in front of our PC’s (in our socially distanced offices which have been moved home for the time being!) reading through the technical document released by the government to identify anything else that we need to get done prior to re-opening.
The Tuesday priory to opening, and especially the Wednesday morning, felt strangely similar to the final days and hours before the start of our major tournament, the Birmingham Classic. We’ve gotten used to the last minute rush to complete jobs in the run up to the event each year, and whilst the jobs were different, for example taping directional signage to paths around the
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