They still do have grass courts in australia don't they? Can any Australian confirm?
Yes indeed. We do still have grass courts in Australia.
Most of the grass courts are located in Melbourne and in Perth.
I am located in Victoria so I am most familiar with the ones located in Melbourne. Kooyong Tennis Club has the most grass courts in Melbourne. Royal South Yarra Lawn Tennis Club also has grass courts. Apart from those two clubs, grass courts are far and few. You will find the odd one here and there if you know where to look.
Keep in mind, the grass courts are playable from October to February / April due to the weather conditions. The Autumn, Winter and early Spring periods are not suitable for grass court play in many parts of southern Australia mainly due to weather. Wet conditions do not permit play on grass of course.
During December and January - the hottest and driest periods, there are many grass court tournaments conducted throughout Victoria and Southern NSW at regional and country venues. But the courts are not permanent courts. They are played at venues with large areas of suitable grass that can be configured with dozens of courts. It is not unusual for a tournament to host 20, 30 or even 40 marked out grass courts for use.
Due to the Australian Open being moved from grass to Hard Court, most tennis clubs in SE Australia focus on having either hard courts or synthetic grass courts nowdays.
However, there is a huge number of tennis clubs in Melbourne that have En Tout Cas (crushed rock clay) courts which are an excellent all weather surface that can be used all year round regardless of the weather. In Melbourne, most junior development is now done on En Tout Cas.
Melbourne also has some venues with Italian Red Clay and Swiss Red Clay surfaces. Unfortunately, they are very high maintenance because Melbourne is a very windy place at times. Wind tends to blow the top surface of fine clay particles away. En Tout Cas courts are much less affected by wind because the surface particles are larger / heavier.
Over time, more and more clubs are replacing their older surfaces with Synthetic Grass which is easier of the body - older members love that. They are also much easier to lay and maintain. And they can continue to be used in most weather conditions.
As a side note ... the former Australian tennis player, Paul McNamee, mentioned in his autobiography that back in the mid 1980s, once Tennis Australia decided to move the AO from Kooyong to Flinders Park, the intention was to move the AO tournament to Synthetic Grass surface. McNamee did not like that idea. He wanted fast Hard Courts. So he rounded up a whole heap of the elite players who indicated they would boyoctt the AO if it was on Synthetic Grass - no other Pro. tournaments were played on Synthetic Grass. This would have placed the AO's Grand Slam status in jeopardy.
So it was decided to move the surface to Hard Courts and Rebound Ace was eventually chosen. Since then it has moved to Plexicushion Prestige. And now it is GreenSet Cushioned Acrylic.
We still wonder if moving to Hard Courts rather than SG was the right decision. Australian players probably would have had a much greater chance of winning the AO because they would have had a home court advantage over the international players. However, the risk of the AO losing its Grand Slam status was too high at the time the decision was made.
The AO was never going to remain as a grass court tournament because the Flinders Park Tennis Centre was intended to be used all year round as a tennis facility. Grass courts can't be used all year round in Melbourne.
