How To Clean A Tennis Court

A few months ago I was walking past my local tennis courts and I saw someone cleaning them using a pressure washer.

To be honest, I’m very lucky to live in an area where the local courts are well maintained.

I’m sure they are better than some of the courts in some tennis clubs!

Building a tennis court doesn’t come cheap, but the overall maintenance is not that expensive, providing you look after it on a regular basis.

In this article, let’s take a look at how to clean a tennis court. For the purposes of this blog post, we’ll look at outdoor hard courts.

Why do you need to clean a tennis court?

Over time, moss and mold can grow on tennis courts, particularly in shady areas. Left untreated, players are more likely to slip and pick up nasty injuries, and it can also ruin the surface. Furthermore, animals and birds can leave droppings on the court, which need to be removed.

Another reason to clean your tennis courts regularly is to save money in the long run. Hard courts usually need to be resurfaced every few years depending how often they’re used, and this can be quite expensive.

If you don’t regularly clean your courts, it can be a bigger job to resurface them, and also for repainting.

How do you get rid of mold?

If any part of the court is regularly in the shade, you’ll likely have some issues with mold and mildew. It’s important you stay on top of this from the get go and treat the area with a bleach and water mix every so often. Doing this will avoid any long term damage to the court surface.

For a more expensive option, you can treat the area with a fungicidal wash, but you’ll need to leave it for a few days after applying it.

Can you pressure wash a tennis court?

It’s probably best to hire a professional. Pressure washing is an extremely useful way to keep tennis courts looking like new, as it can effectively clean everywhere including all the little cracks and grooves.

But you need to use the right equipment.

Use a setting which is too high and you risk damaging the paintwork, and if it’s too low, it might not be effective enough at cleaning the court.

Done correctly pressure washing can ensure you don’t need to paint the court too often.

How often do you need to clean a tennis court?

For basic cleaning, once a week should be fine, and you only really need to sweep up some leaves, pine needles, moss and other bits of debris. Depending on how much your tennis court is in the shade, you’ll probably want to do a thorough clean around once every few months, or once a year.

How much does it cost?

It depends on what you’re exactly having done. If your court is in a bad condition and needs a lot of work done, including moss removal, it could cost up to $1000 if you get some local contractors to do it.

However, you can avoid a big cleaning bill if you ensure you look after your court on a regular basis.

What is the process for a thorough clean of a tennis court?

If you feel the job is too big to take on yourself and you decide to hire a local contractor to do everything for you, here’s an example of the process:

Based on a UK based company called Dragon Courts

Patch test

A small area in the corner of the court area will be tested on to find the right water pressure for the pressure washer.

Sweeping/Cleaning

A special cleaner sweeps across the court, hovering a few centimetres above the surface. It delivers vast quantities of water to remove bits of algae, moss and lichen which have stuck on to the court surface.