NEW SURFACES

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30962, 19 January 1966, Page 10

NEW SURFACES

r pHE search for the perA feet tennis court surface is a continuing one. Mr A. D. Atkinson, chairman of the Canterbury Lawn Tennis Association’s competitions committee returned recently from a visit to Queensland where he took a close interest in the type of surface used. At Coulandra, a seaside resort, about 60 miles north of Brisbane, he played on a court with a powdered granite surface. The bounce was true but the court was slippery and there was difficulty anticipating at the net. At Southport, a mile and a half north of Surfers’ Paradise, Mr Atkinson watched the final of the Rose Bowl tournament in which A. Davidson beat J. Cooper, a brother of the professional and Wimbledon

winner, A. Cooper. The surface was clay compounded with crushed brick and it was a much dustier court. From the New Zealand point of view, Mr Atkinson saw difficulties in obtaining materials, in keeping up the preparation required. He felt that these courts required more groundsmen and more maintenance than grass. In Brisbane he saw a court which is a composition of bitumen, sugar cane residue and crumb rubber with a built-in green colour. He found it had a pleasant cushiony surface as soft as grass with the bounce nearly the same. It had been down three years and was beginning to develop some cracks, but there was not the frost to get into them as there would be in Christchurch.