Types of Tennis Courts
See also: Tennis#SurfaceTennis is played on a variety of surfaces and each surface has its own characteristics which affect the playing style of the game. There are four main types of courts depending on the materials used for the court surface: clay courts, hard courts, grass courts and carpet courts. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) lists different surfaces and properties and classifies surfaces into one of five five pace settings:
- Category 1 (slow)
- Category 2 (medium-slow)
- Category 3 (medium)
- Category 4 (medium-fast)
- Category 5 (fast)
Of the Grand Slam tournaments, the US Open and Australian Open use hard courts (though both used grass courts in the past, and the US Open used clay courts from 1975 through 1977), the French Open is played on clay (though it too was played on grass before 1928), and Wimbledon has always been played on grass.
ITF uses the following classification for tennis court surface types:
| Surface code | Type | Descripion |
| A | Acrylic | Textured, pigmented, resin-bound coating |
| B | Artificial clay | Synthetic surface with the appearance of clay |
| C | Artificial grass | Synthetic surface with the appearance of natural grass |
| D | Asphalt | Bitumen-bound aggregate |
| E | Carpet | Textile or polymeric material supplied in rolls or sheets of finished product |
| F | Clay | Unbound mineral aggregate |
| G | Concrete | Cement-bound aggregate |
| H | Grass | Natural grass grown from seed |
| J | Other | E.g. modular systems (tiles), wood, canvas |
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