Tent Tennis

Tennis buffs have dreamed for years of a grass court where the rain never falls and the sun never blinds and the wind never blows. It is more than a dream in Litchfield, Conn., where the Forman School recently unveiled its synthetic solution to the problem--a tennis court surfaced with grass made of vinyl and sheltered by a nylon tent.

Looking like a strange translucent bubble, the nylon dome is kept aloft by a pair of 1 1/2-h.p. fans, is big enough (120 ft. long, 33 ft. high) for all but the most enthusiastic lob shots. Adapted from a design for use in housing radar-antenna installations, the tent was built by Birdair Structures Inc. of Buffalo, N.Y., can be rigged and inflated in several hours, packs away when not in use into a space just about the size of a pingpong table.

Even more novel is the artificial grass of the court itself. It is made by a Japanese patented process originally devised for doormats. The plastic is poured into a square mold with 800 indentations per square inch. When the drying plastic is pulled away, the nubs stick, and stretch into "blades" of grass. Then the squares are laid on an asphalt court, just as a homeowner might lay tile on a kitchen floor. The result is a durable and resilient surface, which is divot-proof, affords better footing and less leg fatigue and keeps both balls and players free from grass stains.

Tennis Star Gardnar Mulloy spent an afternoon on the court, called it "the best indoor court I've ever played on." Though Mulloy found that the fake grass fibers slow the court a fraction too much to suit a top-ranked player, he pronounced it "about as ideal a surface as you could have for the average player."

Forman got its court at about half-price largely because of Director of Development Stowell Mears, who wangled a grant from the Ford Foundation's Educational Facilities Laboratories. But estimates are that the whole thing could be duplicated for about $25,000--$10,000 for the bubble, $4,500 for the asphalt base, $10,000 for the vinyl grass. In comparison, a real grass court, even without the bubble, costs about $25,000 to construct and requires the additional expense of upkeep and maintenance. The Forman court, if damaged or worn bare, can be replaced easily square by square. The new surface is already considered so successful that Manhattan's Little Red School House is currently interested in installing an outdoor vinyl playground, and other schools are considering using the surface in their indoor play areas to avoid splinters and skinned knees.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.