Most high technology you read about in the tennis world is always with racquets and shoes. When mentioned in the court surface world it usually refers to someone trying to make a hard court softer and more comfortable. If this was possible, you could simply do it with shoes and not worry about the surface. What gives the comfort and the reduced body injuries is the slide of the surface. Any surface with positive traction will be hard on your body, because all the energy of a sudden stop is transferred down through the joints of your hips and legs with each stop. What the average lifetime player really wants is a fast-dry type court with the slide, comfort, cool surface temperature and the feel he loves. Up 'til now this was not practical in some situations because of the ongoing maintenance costs and water usage.

New Technology
Enter technology: approximately thirteen years ago in the California Desert a new technology was born that has and will continue to change the way all of us think about fast-dry courts. Hydrocourt as we know it today was the result of this simple, yet ingenious, idea of building a tennis court on top of a controlled water reservoir. Cells of ballast stone are installed using the water itself as a leveling devise. These leveled cells are connected to small control boxes placed outside the court which reflect the cells water level. A geotextile is then placed over the leveled cells, protecting the cells from contamination. Then, special stone screenings are applied and HydroBlend surfacing is installed over the cells. The water level in these cells is maintained by a float valve inside the control box operating like a simple toilet tank. Since the water is perfectly level under each cell area, evaporation and capillary action provide water to the top surface evenly. The only adjustment is the water level, and, once set, it is maintained automatically. An overflow tube controls any water buildup due to rain, making the system simple and reliable.

How can such a simple system have such an impact on tennis courts? Well, for the first time the players and the owners can both get what they want; comfortable courts with the slide and feel of fast-dry with low maintenance and low water use that make them inexpensive to maintain. This makes fast-dry courts practical in almost any situation.

All the comfort and benefits of playing on fast-dry with no down time for watering, and with a fraction of the maintenance cost and water usage of conventional fast-dry courts.

The engineers at Lee Tennis worked with the HydroCourt system for years before it developed and matured into the product you see today. Lee Tennis took over HydroCourt two years ago, and, with the support of a strong name behind it, HydroCourt has taken off and now has hundreds of courts all over the U.S. - and a growing world market as well.

What's Next?
So what is next for the fast-dry world? As with most technological developments, they spawn more new ideas at every turn, and this is certainly the case with HydroCourt and the idea of watering courts from underground. New approaches and refinements are popping up every day that make the HydroCourt system better and more efficient. Retrofit versions of HydroCourt for existing courts, as well as modified new court systems, have already become options for those with limited budgets. New surfacing mixtures, the use of chemicals to solve court problems, new construction methods and new specialized equipment are all recent spin-offs of this new technology. The costs of HydroCourts and conventional fast-dry courts in general are coming down, and the value and practicality is going up. With companies like Lee Tennis Products listening to the court builders and owners and using the resources they have, the fast-dry court, with its distinguished past, is becoming the high tech court of the future.