Why are there so many different court types in tennis?
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The different surfaces are there for historic reasons as the game evolved usually based on the surface available to create a court. As tennis historically was a royal game you can trace the lineage of each court type to the actual royal courts where the game evolved.
Today you have 4 main types of courts. Grass, Clay, Hard and Carpet (the latter is everything from artificial grass to polymer courts which are laid on top of another surface).
For professional tournaments especially the grand slam ones only Clay, Grass and Hard courts are used. With Wimbledon being grass, the French open being Clay and US Open being hard.
The surfaces impact the speed of the game since the ball bounces back at different rates as well as the level of traction available for the player.
The ITF which is the body governing tennis has a classification system where a number from 1 to 5 defines the speed of the game which the court will allow and the letters A to J defining the material (with J being the catch all for anything that isn’t classified specifically).
So your local tennis club would usually have the courts rated as A and G for acrylic or concrete being the most common combined with 4/5 which is medium-fast to fast courts, tho acrylic can often go slower especially for indoor courts which are often also used for other sports.
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