We took a close look at the course speeds at the Master’s and Grand Slam tournaments last November. Now it’s time for the 500 series hard court tournaments.
In the final of Acapulco on Sunday, Juan Martin del Potro and Kevin Anderson face each other two players who, as we all know, like it quite fast. Looking at the CPI (Court Pace Index) of the 500cc event in Mexico, however, one might have expected a different constellation.
The ratio, which can be determined with the help of the Hawk Eye from factors such as altitude, temperature, balls and weather conditions, is comparatively low in Acapulco. On the first three days of the tournament at the Centre Court, an average CPI value of 30.0 was determined – no other hard court tournament in the 500 series has a slower surface.
A distinction is made between fast (>45), medium-fast (40-44), medium (35-39), medium-slow (34-30) and slow places (<29).
Tennis commentator Lee Goodall has summarized the figures from 2017/18 via Twitter:”The ATP tournament in Washington D. C. is the leader in this category. with a CPI of 41, followed by Rotterdam and Tokyo (38), Dubai and Basel (37) as well as Beijing (36) and Vienna (33).
In the Masters tournaments, Shanghai (42.9) came out on top in 2017, while the Australian Open (42.0) led the list in the Grand Slam competition. Slower than in Indian Wells (27.3) and at the US Open (35.7) there was no hard court (1000s/Majors) anywhere.