Are court pace classifications fit for professional and college tennis?
Laykold’s Luke Burden explains why tighter court classification tolerances are the future.
Court surface speed is one of the most influential yet often overlooked variables in the sport of tennis. As competition gets faster, more physical, and more precise, even the smallest differences in court pace can dramatically influence player performance and match outcomes.
Governing bodies like the ITF use Court Pace Ratings (CPR) to create standardized categories — but are these classifications accurate and precise enough for the standards demanded in professional and collegiate tennis?
Against the backdrop of the US Open, the world’s fastest Slam playing out at Flushing Meadows, Laykold’s former tennis pro and coach, Luke Burden, takes a closer look.
What are Court Pace Ratings (CPR) and how are they determined?
The ITF’s Court Pace Rating categorization is the global standard for measuring how fast or slow a tennis court plays. Using a device called spRite, a ball is fired at the surface, and its speed is measured before and after the bounce. The amount of speed lost is calculated and converted into a numerical value that falls into one of five court pace categories:
This system gives manufacturers and tournament organizers a way to label surfaces consistently. It also guides ITF court certification and ensures surfaces meet minimum standards for international play.
CPR vs CPI: Surface Speed vs Match Conditions
Fans watching professional matches often see a different speed metric quoted on TV: the Court Pace Index (CPI) provided by Hawk-Eye. Unlike CPR, which measures the physical surface only, CPI calculates an in-play speed based on ball tracking data, that takes into account a multitude of different variables, averaged per court, per day including:
Ball speed in live rallies
Humidity, wind, air temperature
Shot style and spin
This makes CPI a better indicator of how the playing conditions are on the day, however it’s not a reliable way to compare one venue to another, one court to another or even the same court day to day, nor is it used for surface certification.
The Problem: CPR classifications aren’t precise enough
While CPR provides a scientific baseline, the classification ranges are too broad for the precision required in professional and collegiate tennis today.
Take Category M3 (“Medium”). Any court measuring a CPR between 35 and 39 is assigned the same label. But in practice, a court with a 35 rating might play noticeably slower than a court with 39 which is almost edging into “Medium Fast.”
Now imagine a college tournament where the Stadium Court has a CPR of 39 and Court 1 has a CPR of 35.
On paper, those courts are considered ‘the same’, but to players, it feels very different. That impacts strategy, timing, muscle memory, string setup, and ultimately, fairness (not to mention the fan experience.)
Precision has a profound impact on performance
Professional players are highly tuned athletes — they train to feel a 1–2 pound difference in string tension or a slight imbalance in racket weight. Yet, we’re allowing a 4–5 point gap in court speed within the same classification. That level of variation would be unacceptable in other areas of the sport:
Players reject rackets if they’re even 1lbs off tension
Athletes meticulously measure electrolyte mixtures
Rackets are matched within grams for weight and balance
So why are court surfaces — arguably the most influential factor in play — allowed tolerances that create major performance differences?
Professional and collegiate tennis needs a new court classification system
The testing method used to obtain CPR — via the spRite device — is considered industry best practice. It produces consistent, quantifiable values that are critical for certifying surfaces and comparing products.
More accuracy for a game of millimeters, milliseconds and miniscule margins of error
However, the classification system that groups courts into only five large categories is not precise enough for the current demands of professional and college-level tennis. The margin of variance within a category is simply too wide to satisfy athletes whose livelihoods depend on millimeters, milliseconds, and margins of error much smaller than the current CPR ranges allow.
“Professional players train to feel a 1–2 pound difference in string tension or a slight imbalance in racket weight. Yet, we’re allowing a 4–5 point gap in court speed within the same classification.”
Tighter court pace classification tolerances will raise the game
CPR testing is valuable and necessary — it brings scientific rigor to surface certification and manufacturing standards. But the current ITF pace categories lack the granularity required at elite levels.
This is why we’ve developed a formulation database that enables our scientists to tailor court speed for individual tournaments to within 0.5 of a point.
Working within the ITF’s 5-point CPR brackets, Laykold is able to dial in an even more accurate level of pace precision and consistency which is 10 x more accurate than the industry standard.
Players deserve greater court pace precision
As the game evolves it is important that governing bodies, universities, and tournament organizers continue to push for tighter classification tolerances — or even disclose the exact CPR numbers to athletes and coaches — rather than relying solely on broad labels like “Medium” or “Medium Fast.”
In the era of data-driven performance, precision matters. Players deserve courts that match the same standards of accuracy seen everywhere else in tennis.
For more information on court pace precision visit:
When it comes to your court pace, are you comparing apples with apples?