The staggering science and art behind Wimbledon's legendary grass courts | Hacker News Reader

The staggering science and art behind Wimbledon's legendary grass courts

abcnews.go.com

19 pointshbcondo71413 comments

An article that is staggeringly sparse on information.

If you think a beer ad might be more informative than TFA, here's Wimbledon's resident hawk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CST629ad4bU

Harris's Hawks are awesome. They are about the only raptor that hunt in packs, e.g. strafing a prey animal in relays to keep it on the move and thus exhaust it. They have also been known to stand on each other's backs [0] to get a better view from a perch without flying and thus making themselves visible to prey.

[0] https://www.audubon.org/news/better-know-bird-how-harriss-ha...

Most of the article is uninformative. They switched to 100% ryegrass, it's more resilient and grows straighter making for a more even court which endures.

Wimbledon has a lot of rest time. Other pitches fare worse, have more varied and heavy use year round.

A lot of modern stadium grass pitches have invested heavily in removable central sections, so cricket can have a chance to share the ground with rugby. And, carefully constructed gravel and sand underbed for optimal drainage. Fans wax lyrical about hallowed turf and its possible for sentiment reasons they keep a few corms of the original turf but honestly? Modern grass is probably better than the old sward, sports-wise. They can cover it with flooring for an Adele concert and be back in usable state for play in under a month.

Doing cricket commentary for TV South African born but English captain Tony Greig used to hack at the cracks in the 22 yards with his car keys. The groundsmen would have hated him. Sorry Caw-Kies.

> A lot of modern stadium grass pitches have invested heavily in removable central sections…

If anyone’s wondering what this looks like: https://youtu.be/N457ZoS0zfg

The updated Barcelona stadium has a similar idea but even more dramatic - the whole pitch is lowered underground into a chamber with sun lights, irrigation etc. so that the stadium can be used for concerts, etc. Quite impressive, to say the least.

Possibly you're thinking of the Real Madrid stadium in Madrid?

They can grow the grass underground. Quite insane.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xZZs6BxLYHM

I am amazed by engineering, but at same time question the resource use and decadence of it...

Oh, you're right actually - mea culpa. I was distracted by the Camp Nou renovation, you're spot on. Although I'm sure Barca will have something equally wondrous.

I have very mixed feelings about that stadium, (and the Raider's stadium linked above).

They're marvels of engineering. But, what a cost to get some pretty grass. Especially the Madrid implementation - not just the engineering of the lifters/underground facility, but the ongoing electrical expense running all those lights and irrigation systems? Maybe it's really just a drop in the bucket of building a massive stadium, or running a professional sports team, but I can't help buy think we (humans) have our priorities all mixed up.

Lambeau Field in Green Bay heats the ground under their grass so it stays green for winter games, even in subzero temps, and has a giant system of grow lights: https://youtu.be/o16kO3uJNJo?si=v9l-QSVPAJrsdqDq

interesting stuff.

I also kind of expected to see this factoid in the post:

"grounds keepers aim to keep the grass at at Wimbledon at a height of exactly 8mm." (https://sports-statistics.com/tennis/wimbledon-tennis-statis... )

Crap article. Here’s a better one on pitch grass and turf.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jun/15/silicon-val...

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