Laykold and the US Open
Laykold is the official court surface of the US Open.
Laykold marked its successful debut appearance as the official surface of the US Open in 2020 and became the first new supplier and installer of the event’s courts in 42 years.
The US Open, the final Grand Slam of the tour year, is known for being the fastest hard-court tournament in professional tennis, with tournament organizers and players demanding precise pace on both practice and competition courts (43 courts in total). To meet these needs, Laykold taps into 25 years of exhaustive testing, scientific research, its formulation database and know-how to enable us to dial in the requested pace rating to within 0.5 of a point, ensuring consistency.
It is this precision work that our Laykold experts are focused on when preparing courts for the prestigious US Open.
“With excellent consistency across all courts, Laykold was able to meet the US Open pace rating and performance exactly.”
Traditional Speed Ratings are behind the pace
An average first serve in men’s tennis is approximately 115 mph, which gives a returner 0.47 seconds to react. These are intense performance parameters which are not matched by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) court speed classifications.
The ITF classifies courts in categories of 1 to 5, with court pace ratings (CPR) based on a relatively wide-ranging points scale. For example, a medium/fast court would have a CPR of 40-45. So traditionally, determining the pace of a court has not been an exact science, and doesn’t match the exacting performance needs of the most highly trained athletes on the planet
Laykold and the U.S. Open set a new standard for pace precision
After the 2020 U.S. Open, Daniel Zausner, Chief Operating Officer, USTA National Tennis Center reported that;
“With excellent consistency across all courts, Laykold was able to meet the U.S. Open pace rating and performance exactly.”
A granular level of accuracy
To deliver this level of pace precision, the type and blend of sand used in the court surface is critical. The specific angles of the grains and how they interact with the grains around them determine the levels of friction between the ball and the court, rendering them agents of pace.
As Wesley Baum, R&D Chemist and Technical and Field Support Manager for Laykold explains:
“Our proprietary blend of sand goes through gradation analysis to test its sieve curve. The tighter the curve, the lower the chance of deviation to court speed, ensuring consistency of surface pace and speed of play which is a major factor in pinpointing the level of pace accuracy that Laykold courts can now achieve.”
Setting the pace for the court surface industry
Ensuring accuracy across the different courts (43 in total) is all part of Baum’s job:
“The way that the U.S. Open is set up, there are 13 practice courts and they’re used by the public across the year, so the pace for those courts is set at medium. However, a medium-fast pace is required for the U.S Open so we need to adapt those court speeds for the tournament as well as dialling in exact pace ratings across all of the main tournament courts. It is a very tailored and meticulous process which has taken years of trial and expertise to optimise.”
Baum will be with his crew at Flushing Meadows from the first week of July for five weeks to install the surface to the U.S. Open’s exacting standards. The precise pace they request remains a well-guarded secret, but the Laykold crew will hit it within 0.5 of a point. Their experience, backed by 25 years of R&D, is setting a new pace for the court surface industry.
