For more than tennis, consider a TigerTurf Multiplay court for your backyard!
Forever and a day, people have been building tennis courts in their back yards. This enables family and friends to get together for a few games, socialise, get a bit of exercise and have some fun.
But tennis is just one sport. With TigerTurf’s multi-sport surfaces, your tennis court can also be used for hockey practice, developing football skills, basketball, netball, a cricket practice net; there are many options.
A TigerTurf Multiplay court at home is a wonderful investment for all the family, drawing together all ages and skill levels to play together, creating the scene for leisure, fitness, skills development and family fun.
Turn your dream of a tennis court into a TigerTurf MultiPlay court, and you will invoke many more opportunities for fun and your family will become fit and happy as they form long-term healthy family relationships.
The ultimate solution for your sports mad family
It is just as easy to lay a court surface that works brilliantly for tennis, and for hockey, netball, basketball, football and family social events.
Families often have many different sports interests as schools extend the sports available to their students. By installing a good quality TigerTurf Multiplay synthetic court, you provide your children with the opportunity to improve their technique safely and conveniently in your own garden, for many years.
A TigerTurf Multiplay court provides more fun and games than just a tennis court
When it’s time to resurface your existing tennis court, talk to our tennis and multi-sport experts about your family’s sporting interests and find out how we can make one court work even better for all your family.
TigerTurf courts provide you with a dry, level surface that looks attractive every day, needs very little maintenance and will become an enjoyable part of your family life. That’s reason enough for a MultiPlay court, but there are plenty of other great ideas you could include.
- Basketball keys and hoops can be installed
- A hockey “D” can be cut in at one end or at the side of the court and used for practicing stick tricks, dribbling, tapping and goal scoring
- If your family includes cricket enthusiasts consider adding a cricket wicket on the edge of your MultiPlay court
- This could also be combined to create a mini-golf driving range; suitably fenced and enclosed to ensure no wayward balls… the perfect practice wicket and golf range in one, alongside your multi-play court.
- More of a netball enthusiast? Install a netball goal circle and hoop for perfecting your goal shooting.
- The MultiPlay court is also excellent for improving football skills with a non-directional surface providing consistent ball control and secure footing.
- Other options can include volleyball, badminton, a baseball diamond or games such as hopscotch and foursquare.
- And let’s not forget lawn bowls and croquet!
TigerTurf uses different colours and line markings to distinguish different games and sports within the turf. These are either tufted into the turf during manufacture or cut into the turf during installation. We are the experts, having established and installed hundreds of multi-sport courts in schools over the past 30 years.
Don’t have enough room for a full-sized tennis court? Talk to TigerTurf about MultiPlay courts for smaller gardens
You don’t need the space of a full-size tennis court to enjoy the benefits of the TigerTurf Multiplay court. As gardens have become smaller, sports have adapted to be played in a tighter, more concentrated format. Loosely translated, this generally means an even tougher workout.
- Multi-play courts can be smaller than conventional tennis courts, and perfect for pop tennis, bowls, netball and basketball, golf putting, cricket and many other outdoor activities.
- The pared-down size of a pop tennis court can still provide the same fun and workout as regular tennis. In fact, the upped tempo, as players race to reach the faster ball is just the thing for an excellent cardio workout.
- We can include a putting green as part of your multi-sports court, but these do look most inviting when attractively placed in your garden setting, ideally replacing a troublesome section of lawn.
TigerTurf multi-play surfaces have been tested for many sports
Our multi-sports surfaces are the product of many years of research and development, and have been variously accredited by international sports bodies for tennis, hockey, football, and cricket – the different products will hold different accreditations, which your TigerTurf advisor can explain.
TigerTurf Evo Pro
- Evo Pro is a fabulous multi-sports surface, specified by top tennis and hockey clubs, and for an increasing number of residential courts, we have constructed for keen tennis players, who have played on this surface and want their own Evo Pro court at home. You could say that TigerTurf Evo Pro is the rock star of our multi-sports galaxy.
- TigerTurf Evo Pro has been certified by the ITF (International Tennis Federation, FIH (Federation of International Hockey, ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board).
- Trophy is accredited as a fast tennis surface by ITF, and holds international accreditation for hockey (FIH) and netball (AENA), making it a wonderful all-rounder as a sports surface.
- This is another of our non-abrasive turfs, an excellent choice for families with young children, keen football players, or both.
- One of our favourite sports turfs for many years, Advantage is a technically advanced, extremely durable multi-sport surface. Classified ITF medium/fast, and preferred by top-level players in tennis clubs, it is the number one tennis surface in the UK.
- Advantage has the characteristics necessary for a successful multi-sport surface, as a premium all-round surface offering good grip underfoot and reliable ball control. It offers outstanding playing qualities for many family sports, such as hockey, volleyball and netball.
- TigerTurf offers a ten-year comprehensive warranty with Advantage, an indication of the durability of this surface.
When you’ve had enough of games, transform your MultiPlay court into an entertaining and dining venue for special occasions
Holding large functions for family and friends is made much easier when you have a level, dry and very attractive landscape lawn to set up tables and chairs, lights and food.
Christmas becomes much more fun; family celebrations such as weddings and birthdays are a breeze. Even simple family picnics on summer evenings are more pleasant on a soft, dry lawn.
Talk to us about what you’d like to achieve, and we can design a successful MultiPlay court that will provide versatility, flexibility, and safety, be a striking feature in your garden and bring enormous value to your lifestyle.
The problem was all too common. How do we attract more members to our tennis club?
Membership numbers at Riverside Tennis Club (formerly Mt Wellington Tennis Club) were dwindling and the tennis courts were in poor condition. More members were required to keep the club sustainable and, to attract more members, the club needed to make some fundamental changes.
The club committee understood any changes it made needed to generate long-term enthusiasm and support for the club to avoid continual fund-raising.
Community partnerships extend the use of sports facilities
The first step was to understand the needs of a changing demographic in order to serve a wider cross-section of the Mt Wellington community. Club representatives set about finding out what the community really wanted in the way of sports facilities and to discover what benefits the club could offer the community to encourage more use of the courts.
They needed to answer the question; How do we attract more members to our tennis club? The club’s research identified the need to include as many community sports as possible. One problem common to local families was that parents had to drive children to many different facilities for their sports practices after school. The idea of a local sports club providing sports grounds suitable for several sports was extremely appealing to families and was rated as a high priority by the community.
By installing multi-sport surfaces, Riverside Tennis Club could offer excellent playing surfaces for hockey, football, netball, and futsal, on courts with all the qualities demanded of top-level tennis.
Delegates spoke to the club’s major shareholders, the Auckland Council and Maungakiekie-Tamaki, about the club’s desire to encourage participation by the local community, and their plans to become self-sustainable by becoming a multi-sport centre. The Tamaki Community Development Trust for children at risk was also prepared to invest in the MWTC changes to give opportunities to youth to play sport and socialise in a safe setting.
Planning and funding a sustainable sports facility
To get the project underway, members from the club talked to community groups and schools about using the club courts for different sports and activities and contributing to the maintenance costs of the facility. This would enable the club to be self-sufficient.
The information gathered was used to define the best possible designs and synthetic grass surfaces to accommodate the various sports. The club then had to find the funds to provide hockey, futsal, football and netball courts to meet that demand.
The strategy was to make the change to a full multi-sport facility over several years. The first funding was used to install a TigerTurf synthetic turf multi-sport court in 2012. That change alone has made an enormous difference to the club, and improved after-school sports logistics for local families, who also began using the club as a family sports centre in the weekends.
And when the new facility proved to be popular with local school and community teams, finding funds for the next multi-turf upgrade was much easier.
Multi-sports turf facility now used by community sports groups
Riverside Tennis Club is now a busy multi-sport centre with tennis at its heart and a thriving youth membership. Its membership roll has more than doubled, and the user numbers are in the hundreds already. In terms of serving its community, the club has certainly been successful.
Initiating a growth in youth membership and Saturday morning tuition sprang from the desire to share the love of tennis with the next generation. TigerTurf’s artificial grass pop tennis court and leisure court provide additional new and fun games to be played by people of all ages – from children to seniors. And now hockey teams, 7-a-side rugby, Auckland Football Fed, local schools, community and church groups all use the courts during the week and contribute to the cost of running the facility.
The courts at Riverside Tennis Club are always busy and all the users respect the club grounds. The club has had no problem with vandalism since inviting the community to share its facilities. In fact, members talk about “the family of sports” users, all sharing the facilities amicably and cooperatively.
Versatile multi-sport courts successful for Riverside Tennis Club
The club assessed the needs of its community accurately, in moving from the conservative image of a tennis club to a multi-sports club.
The initial design process was detailed in its plan to accommodate every sport comfortably using artificial turf and to provide suitable playing areas for players of all ages. The club discussed ways of achieving this with TigerTurf before it began the process of upgrading the five tennis courts.
TigerTurf Advantage and Tournament multi-sport turfs were installed on the five full-size tennis courts, offering the right mix of playing characteristics for many community sports. As a result, the club has been able to host several different sports on the courts – sometimes 6 separate sports are underway at once – with a court always available for tennis.
Mobile, adjustable tennis nets are used for tennis, pop tennis, volleyball or badminton, and moved to the side of the court when not required. Curtain nets are used to divide the courts, making it easy to set up mini-courts and practice areas very quickly.
TigerTurf POP Tennis and Leisure Courts in full use at MWTC
TigerTurf installed the first New Zealand pop tennis court at the Mt Wellington Tennis Club, using TigerTurf Advantage, a durable and high-performance sports surface. Its tremendous success with children and adults has led to greatly increased numbers of players at the club.
The Leisure Court was constructed where previously a lawn had been rarely used, and TigerTurf Tournament was selected as being the best multi-sport surface for the purpose. This too has been enormously popular, its adjustable net easily managed by children for beach volleyball, tennis, badminton, and futsal as well as any other games the inventive youngsters come up with.
Families are enthusiastic about their local multi-sports facility
This growth in the use of the club facilities by families has changed the character of the club and, in turn, has attracted more families to use the club courts. All these changes have been warmly welcomed by the club and its’ community partners.
The club now has junior futsal teams, netball, tennis and volleyball teams that are well supported and taking part in interclub competitions. The club seniors enjoy hearing young voices and the Saturday morning tuition classes are full. This increase in young sports players has been extremely positive for the club.
The Riverside Tennis Club has become a successful community sports club, run by the community for the community and could well have set the pattern for the future of urban sports clubs in New Zealand.
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Clear debris
Use a rake or a leaf blower to clear away any rotting debris from the MUGAs surface. You must take care however not to shift the sand infill if your turf is a filled surface. It might seem like a simple tip, but clearing away debris that lands on top of your artificial grass will go a long way in helping to maintain its high performance.
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De-weed
The outdoor nature of artificial grass makes it susceptible to airborne seeds blowing onto its surface. It is important therefore to regularly inspect the surface of your MUGA, and pull up any weeds or plants that may have begun to grow. Otherwise you risk the organic matter damaging the turf.
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Brush the surface
Brushing is key to maintaining a high performance MUGA and ensuring that it continues to look its very best. A flexi comb can be used for light brushing, alternatively a mechanical brush such as a tractor-mounted oscillating drag brush will provide something more thorough. This will lift the pile and ensure it continues to look attractive to users. Brushing the artificial grass is particularly important following periods of high usage.
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Don’t ignore the infill
Over time you may find that the infill levels in your MUGA have declined, which could be because it is often carried away from the surface on the soles of shoes. So, topping up the infill around areas which see increased use such as penalty spots and corners will help to prevent uneven distribution. It’s also advised that you arrange for a specialist contractor to carry out a thorough maintenance regime, allowing them to lift the infill and redistribute it evenly across the surface of the artificial grass.