Wimbledon and Olympic gold medal hero, Andy Murray, is also a hotelier. He is the proprietor of the prestigious five star Cromlix House, a converted Victorian mansion located in Kinbuck, Scotland (near to Andy’s home town of Dunblane, Perthshire). As homage to his Wimbledon success he painted the hotels tennis courts in the official Wimbledon colours green and purple. It just so happened the paint used to achieve this unique colour combination at the hotel was in fact from the same manufacturer who produces the Centrecoat Centre-Court Premium Tennis Court paint, supplied by Promain. Along with the traditional colours of green and red, the same unique colour purple, as well as the blue that is growing rapidly in popularity, are also colours supplied by Promain.
Premium Tennis Court Paint
Centrecoat Centre-Court Premium Tennis Court Paint is a hard-wearing, single pack, water based, easy-to-apply, polyurethane & acrylic blend paint coating that is suitable not only for contractors, but also competent DIYers. It provides a tough, durable, friction and impact resistant tennis court coating that has the correct slip resistances to allow the correct pace and speed of play as set by the ITF – International Tennis Federation. It is manufactured to comply with the high standards set by the ITF and meets the tough requirements of SAPCA’s Code of Practice for the Painting of Porous Macadam Tennis and Netball Courts.
Since word has spread about Andy Murray’s unique Wimbledon green and purple tennis court, it has caused a lot of demand for tennis court paint in the same unique colours, which Promain can now offer in the shape of the Centrecoat Centre-Court Premium Tennis Court Paint. Along with the increased demand for tennis court surface coatings there has also been a lot of requests for technical advice on how to paint a tennis court. Below, we run through the entire application process from start to finish. We will include some helpful hints and tips to make the process as easy as possible.
How to apply tennis court paint
A question we are asked on a regular basis is; “how much paint do I need to paint my tennis court?”. With that in mind, we have put together a package deal which has enough paint to cover a standard tennis court, including re-lining and run-offs. The package deal includes 11 x 20 litre tins of Centre-Court Premium Tennis Court Paint in either light green, dark green, brick red, standard blue or dark blue and now Wimbledon purple, as well as 5 litres of white line marking paint for only £975.00 plus VAT. Purchasing tennis court paint in this way will enable you to save £161.24.
Alternatively, if you work out the quantity of paint required at between 3-4 m2 per litre, this will be enough paint to apply 2 coats when using Centrecoat Centre-Court Premium Tennis Court Paint.
Before you rush ahead and apply any paint, you will first need to ensure the weather conditions are favourable for painting your tennis court. The type of conditions required would be temperatures above 5°C and likely to remain so for 6-7 hours. Maximum relative humidity of 80% with no frost, rain, fog or wet weather forecast. If the temperature of the surface is above 30 °C, application of tennis court paint should be avoided. However you can overcome this obstacle by cooling the substrate with water before applying the paint. If you do cool the surface in this way, be sure to let the surface dry before applying your first coat of paint.
Preparation
If you are intending to paint a new macadam tennis court for the first time you will need to allow the surface to oxidise first. The length of time this process of oxidisation can take can vary depending on the surface and atmospheric condition. Generally, this process tends to be around 2-3 weeks in the height of summer and up to 3 months in the winter. You will know once it has completed oxidisation as the surface will change from a black glossy finish to more of a matt grey finish. If the tennis court is already painted, ensure you remove any loose or flaking paint. Applying a paint on to failing court will inevitably lead to newly applied paint also failing. As we say here in technical a paint is only as good as the surface you are painting.
Cleaning
Now it’s time to clean the surface, sweep and vacuum the surface to remove any lose grit or debris then treat the surface with GS36 fungicidal wash to remove any green moss or other green growth from the surface. To use GS36 simply dilute at a ratio of 20 to 1 with fresh clean water. Then using either a back sprayer or watering can with a sprinkler head, coat the surface with the solution and leave to dry. Bypassing the fungicidal wash can result in algae or moss growing beneath the new paint. This will eventually cause the paint to bubble and lose adhesion with the surface. After allowing the GS36 treatment to dry, complete the preparation of the tennis court by thoroughly cleaning the surface. Use a high-pressure jet wash and allow to completely dry.
Application
Now it’s time to apply the tennis court paint, the best method of application in our experience is to sparingly apply the paint using a roller working in strips and allowing suitable overlap of the strips, apply 2 coats allowing 12 hours between coats. We also recommend you apply the second coat of paint at 90 degrees to the first to help reduce patches being missed. It is sometimes possible to apply 2 coats in the same day if weather conditions are favourable. Always avoid pouring the paint on the surface and spreading with a squidgy. This can result in problems with court draining, I will go into more detail about this below.
The Promain technical department have received lots of calls from our customers who, after completing the painting of their tennis court, are perplexed as to why they have not achieved a solid colour finish. The customers advise us that they can still see black voids on the courts surface where it undulates as they look directly down. The paint then appears as a solid finish when looking at an angle. This is not due to incorrect application of the tennis court paint or product failure. It is in fact an indication the paint has been correctly applied. The un-painted areas you are seeing are in fact the pores. These are required to properly allow water to drain from the surface of the court.
Tennis courts are designed to be permeable (porous) to water allowing it to freely drain through the surface. This prevents surface water collecting or pooling on the surface which can become a slip hazard. It could also possibly cause damage to the paint and tennis court when left for long periods of time.
How to re-line a tennis court
When it comes to relining your tennis court the Promain technical team have some helpful hints and tips to make the whole process an easy one to complete. The most time-consuming part of re-lining a freshly painted tennis court is working out where the lines need to be applied and marking out these aforementioned lines. The easiest way to avoid this is not to completely overcoat the lines when painting the large areas of the tennis court surface.
The technique to use is slightly over paint the existing lines by around 10% either side. This will leave the lines exposed and provide a guide when it comes to over coating. When you are ready to apply the line marking paint, either mask the edges of the line using a heavy-duty tape (such as Walther Strong Utility Duct Tape) or ping a chalk line using the old exposed line as a guide. Then, using a mini roller, apply a nice even coat of the white line paint and leave to cure. After allowing the first coat to cure apply a second coat, applied in the same manner as the first. After completing the repainting of your Tennis Court ensure you allow at least 72 hours for the paint to fully cure before returning to service.
If you have a tennis court you wish to re-paint and you would like some further technical advice, do not hesitate to contact our technical department on 01462 421 333 and we will be happy to help.
