Wimbledon trials plastic grass to combat the everlasting threat of a wet British summer

Wimbledon organisers have said they are trialling plastic grass “for the betterment of world grass court tennis”.

Neil Stubley, head of courts at the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC), said the organisation was holding trials in the UK with the aim of eventually implementing hybrid grass courts into the game.

While the tournament's head groundsman said there were currently no plans to implement the new turf to courts at The Championships yet, he did not rule it out in the future.

Hybrid grass, already used widely in professional football pitches, is created by weaving in synthetic fibres to natural grass for greater durability, intensive use and court longevity.

Artificial fibres are injected into the ground before the natural grass is grown, resulting in the roots entwining with the fibres and creating more stability.

It first appeared in the 1990s and has since been implemented across a variety of sports competitions worldwide, including in the 2010 World Cup stadium and in the Tokyo Olympic Stadium.

Wimbledon is world-renowned for being the only Grand Slam tournament that takes place on grass courts, with organisers taking great pride in the ground's famous surfaces.

Mr Stubley told a press conference at Wimbledon on Tuesday: “We've been researching for three or four years but at the moment it's going well.

“We've got some trial courts now and we're just getting players and members to play on it.”

He added that members of the club “want to champion global grass tennis not just for The Championships” but “potentially have tournaments in any country in the world”.

Boost for tennis grass court season

The AELTC said it works alongside the STRI Group, a sports turf consultancy, to test and develop what systems are most effective on grass, before applying them to Wimbledon’s world-famous courts.

The hybrid trial grass courts are currently being trialled by the AELTC at Raynes Park in Wimbledon, just a few miles away from The Championships.

Mr Stubley, who has been at Wimbledon for 27 years, said that the move to the grass stitching system could extend the tennis grass court season in the UK by “four to six weeks” and would combat the threat of a wet British summer.

“One of the biggest challenges is that the season is always so short, so if you invariably get a wet summer, you almost write that season off,” he said.

“All sports are looking into the stitch system … cricket are looking into it to get a longer game and that’s what could bode well for us.”

Mr Stubley added that a lot of research was being done with “southern hemisphere grasses” in order to provide “the same characteristics as a court at Wimbledon” to hotter countries around the world.

So far, the research has shown that the hybrid grass “does work for tennis” and that the characteristics of a grass court can be imitated from different types of soil, such as the sandier soils found in Australia.

He added: “I’m not so sure at the moment what benefit it would bring because there’s such intense play in such a short period of time. I’m not so sure that any grass will ever kind of get to the end of The Championships and look like it has not been played on.”

This year, organisers allowed players to go on to the show courts ahead of the tournament, so that the pristine grass would be more worn and less wet than 2021 - during which a number of players sustained injuries through slipping.

Mr Stubley said: "You've always invariably got that risk at the start of The Championships ... it's new grass it has to be played in slightly and of course the practice has helped with that.”

While he said there are “invariably going to be some slips”, he added: “The feedback that we've had is nothing that wouldn't be different to a normal championship.”