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Tennis Court:
Assessing the Suitability of Your Site

Whether you choose post-tensioned concrete or another type of slab for your sport court, it's important to make sure your backyard space can accommodate the layout you have in mind. Here are the key factors to consider:

• Size. The overall size of a regulation tennis court for doubles play is 60 x 120 feet (per the International Tennis Federation). However, you must allow additional space around the court perimeter to give the contractor room to work and to permit the installation of drainage, landscaping, and fencing. Munson recommends leaving at least 12 feet between the court sidelines and the closest fixed obstructions, and 21 feet between the baselines and fixed obstructions. Where space is limited, you can downsize to a slightly smaller court. ITF recommends a minimum court size of 56 x 114 feet. An NBA/NCAA regulation full-size basketball court is 94 feet long and 50 feet wide. For backyards without enough acreage for a pro court, half courts can suffice for one-on-one games. (See this diagram of court dimensions from Half Court Sports.)

• Orientation. The time of day you plan to use the court and your geographic location will determine the best orientation for your court. If the court is to be used consistently throughout the day, ASBA recommends a north-south orientation as the best compromise between the extremes of early morning and late afternoon sun angles.

• Sloping and drainage. Proper slope of the subgrade is critical to allow water drainage away from the court. The ground should be reasonably level, preferably on the same plane or higher than adjacent land. (ASBA advocates a finished subgrade 4 to 6 inches above the surrounding ground.) If your site has a high water table, you may also need to install an underground drainage system. Options include French drains, properly graded gravel-filled trenches, geocomposites, and perforated drain lines surrounded with stone.

• Soil conditions. Even a well-constructed tennis court can fail if the subsurface it's built on is unstable. ASBA recommends hiring a qualified geotechnical engineer to perform a soil analysis, to identify such problems as expansive soils, high organic material content, and high groundwater conditions.

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