Why don’t tennis players wear cleats? I’m watching the Wimbledon, which is rare but just threw it on TV, and noticed that the players shoes don’t seem to give them a lot of grip. They make wide turns at high speed, and when they do make a sharp turn, I’ve seen them break traction a lot of times. One almost blew his knee out. And I think that it could’ve been solved with proper footwear.
I’ve done a quick google search and tennis shoes are coming up as flat bottom or with this little studs that are really suggestions. I wouldn’t be comfortable trying to sprint on grass with them. So what’s the idea?
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It would ruin the grass surface.
As for amateur tennis: that’s mostly not played on grass. Flat shoes are better on all other surfaces tennis is played on.
As others have said, the surface needs to be kept very well maintained because of the nature of the sport itself. A ball as light and bouncy as a tennis ball hitting a rough patch at 120 miles an hour would completely go all over the place.
Also, tennis players use the lack of friction to their advantage by sliding to reach hard shots without going completely off field. If you start sliding in the middle of your run and hit the ball you are positioned to reverse direction quickly. If your shoes stuck to the surface you would either have to reduce speed early or keep running after the hit which would make a follow up more difficult.
It would destroy the court. Ball bounce would be impossible to predict if there were divots all over the court.
The amount of knee injuries would be insane. Tennis is lots of quick back and forth direction changes. Knee injuries from cleats digging in too much are common in other field sports, but the benefits outweighs the cost usually. In tennis, players would frequently twist and overextend their knees if cleats got stuck in the grass while trying to change direction.
Good players use the sliding of their footwear on the grass to their advantage. It always them to reach shots they would otherwise miss.
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