{"id":908256,"date":"2026-07-02T20:16:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T20:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/908256\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T20:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T20:16:19","slug":"heat-wave-didnt-prevent-wimbledon-from-keeping-its-courts-perfectly-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/908256\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat wave didn’t prevent Wimbledon from keeping its courts perfectly green"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Grass in much of London turned brown last week amid a record heat wave<\/a> that made Britain and the rest of Europe sizzle. Water demand skyrocketed and suppliers urged people to drastically reduce outdoor usage.<\/p>\n

The perfectly manicured lawns of Wimbledon\u2019s famous tennis courts<\/a> are as green as ever, though, as play at the grass-court Grand Slam got underway this week.<\/p>\n

The lush green courts are a standard that players, spectators and broadcasters have come to expect \u2014 or take for granted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have not once ever considered the watering of the grass,\u201d American player Madison Keys said Thursday after a second-round win. \u201cThey always are (green), so that\u2019s probably why I have never thought about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The players don\u2019t need to worry about it because Neil Stubley, the All England Club\u2019s head of courts and horticulture, and his team of 31 groundskeepers make sure that Wimbledon<\/a> is always a picture-perfect spectacle thanks to constant maintenance.<\/p>\n

Stubley said he\u2019s \u201cprobably got about 25 weather apps that I look at probably every seven minutes\u201d to make sure he keeps up with the changing climate. He attributes the perfectly green courts to years of research into grasses that can withstand extreme heat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s inevitable and it is happening,\u201d Stubley said of the increasing number of heat waves<\/a> in Britain. \u201cWe have a grass species trial that\u2019s been running for nearly 40 years looking at what are the best grasses for tennis, the more drought tolerant, the more hard-wearing grasses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 18 tournament courts and 20 practice courts for Wimbledon have been sown with perennial ryegrass since 2001. Also, tubes are installed on Centre Court and four other courts in which a probe can be inserted to measure soil moisture.<\/p>\n

Soil moisture levels have a direct bearing on surface hardness, live grass cover and ball rebound. The probes came in handy last week when temperature records for June in Britain were smashed on three consecutive days.<\/p>\n

It was England\u2019s warmest June on record, according to the Met Office, Britain\u2019s national weather service.<\/p>\n

What made the heat wave even worse was overnight temperatures were also well-above average.<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t been an issue this week, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment, in London, in the UK, you may have a 33-degree (Celsius) day (91 Fahrenheit) but you\u2019re then getting a 17-degree (62 F) overnight,\u201d Stubley added. \u201cThat allows the temperature to come down, it allows the dew point to come in. It\u2019s almost like us going into an air conditioned room in the evening \u2014 we can all chill out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The heat wave in Britain ended last weekend and temperatures at Wimbledon this week have not risen above 26 C (79 F). But it\u2019s forecast to get hotter over the middle weekend and into next week.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more is that it hasn\u2019t rained once during this year\u2019s tournament and there is no rain in the forecast.<\/p>\n

Spring in London this year was also drier than usual with April having had only 20% of the average expected rain, according to Thames Water, which is responsible for the water supply in Greater London.<\/p>\n

Water supply<\/p>\n

There are 54 million grass plants on Centre Court alone at the start of the championships and 200 metric tons of soil are used each year to level the courts.<\/p>\n

Each court at Wimbledon has its own unique irrigation program but the club does not have its own water supply system.<\/p>\n

Still, organizers strive for conservation.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time we do a project, part of the remit is how can we conserve things, whether that be energy, whether that be water, the construction of the core, we\u2019re constantly looking at the drainage layers, whether we can start using systems where we can recapture water and reuse it, whether it\u2019s just potable or can we have boreholes, whether we can use the lakes across the road,\u201d Stubley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a very fast-moving kind of dynamic because the laws always change. One minute you can have a borehole, the next year you can\u2019t, depending on legislation,\u201d Stubley added.<\/p>\n

Counting grass blades<\/p>\n

Hot temperatures have become an issue at all four Grand Slams in recent years, whether it\u2019s consistently extreme temperatures at the Australian Open, an unexpected heat wave during this year\u2019s French Open<\/a>, or the humidity at the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n

But Wimbledon is the only major played on a live surface; since the Australian Open and U.S. Open are contested on hard courts and the French Open is played on red clay.<\/p>\n

Preparation of the Wimbledon courts is independently verified by the Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI) in Yorkshire.<\/p>\n

The research institute performs moisture and hardness readings and even counts blades of grass on the baselines to see how quickly the plants are wearing out.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then every day we get that data,\u201d Stubley said. \u201cEach court will have its own microclimate. \u2026 So we\u2019re constantly number crunching. \u2026 When we\u2019re getting those hardness readings and it\u2019s saying that Court 14 is firmer than Centre Court, we can then add a little bit more water to 14 and a little less to Centre Court so we keep those numbers the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Cheese grater\u2019 sliding damage<\/p>\n

Heat isn\u2019t the only menace to Wimbledon\u2019s courts. Defending champion Jannik Sinner and seven-time winner Novak Djokovic act as unintended lawn mowers when they slide across the baseline to reach shots.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the pimple of a grass-court tennis shoe, it\u2019s almost like a cheese grater,\u201d Stubley said. \u201cAs it cuts through the plant, it will shred leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike the spots where most players stand to serve \u2014 which typically turn brown later in the tournament because of heavy usage \u2014 the sliding damage has a different impact on the courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more spread out when you\u2019ve got the likes of Novak and Sinner doing that,\u201d Stubley said. \u201cYear on year you will have people that just have different styles and we just have to accept that.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Grass in much of London turned brown last week amid a record heat wave that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":908257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[48],"tags":[10109,10106,3884,1824,2676,23024,367481,9125,62,1464,376,67,132,68,313,2071,14374],"class_list":["post-908256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-climate","tag-climate-and-environment","tag-heat-waves","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-london","tag-madison-keys","tag-neil-stubley","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-weather","tag-wimbledon","tag-wimbledon-championships"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116852227466631285","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=908256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}