David's Best Tips:

• Planning permission may not be required for building a grass court in your back yard.
• Allthough the stipulated area for a tennis court is 120 feet by 60 feet, 110 by 55 is adequate for most people and can shave thousands off the cost.
• Putting fencing only around the backs of the court saves money and is visually less intrusive.
• Cutting the corners off at 45 degrees doesn't effect play but instead is visually more pleasing and it also trickles the balls to the centre of the court behind the baseline.

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I used to tend daily my court at Burleigh Cottage, my court lasted 10 years where the average court is about 5 before it needs to be resurfaced. Resurfaced is really another way of maintaining it really. So, tarmac courts last about... before they need repairing... so the repair of a tennis court is really resurfacing it.

Right.... So they would scrape off the first couple of inches and then lay it back down again?

Well that's what they should do but what they nearly always do is just lay it on top of the surface. And tapper is slowly to a ... on the edges they just run it down a little. Quite dangerous actually - you can twist your ankle on those you've got to be careful on those sorts of court... you can turn your foot over on the edges. That can be a nasty accident. I've seen some really, really bad ligament effected due to the turning downwards and outwards of your foot, because it's been lifted up and rounded down. But I used to collect these stones daily that broke off on my court...

So you'd see a piece of gravel, pick it up, put it in your pocket and it would save people.... cause as people would tread on them it would break another piece off and it would be like a mushrooming effect, that each piece loose causes another piece and so on?

I'm not as eloquent as you, and what you've just said explains it perfectly. I used to finish up with quite a few little stones in my pocket and have to empty them at the end of the day. So it wasn't a case of once a week I emptied my pocket. I had to empty them every day. Or change my shorts or whatever and I couldn't leave the stones in.

I'm sure you.... Whatever you saved on the tennis court I'm sure you spent on washing machine repairs.

Yeah... sort of thing. But what happened was that my court lasted 10 years not 5. And so, I extended right out and.... well it was lovely. People used to say, "Gosh is this court really this old?" And I used to love that.

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