28 March 2014 | Tennis West

Dalkeith Tennis Club is delighted to present the first Hartru club courts available to competitive and social players.

Hartru is a common clay court system in use in the USA. In Australia it is relatively new with only one court in place at Macquarie University in NSW.

The courts have taken over three years to plan, six months to build, and will be officially opened this Sunday the 30th of March 2015 at 5pm at a ceremony attended by the Premier Colin Barnett, and club Patron and MP Bill Marmion, together with guests from Tennis West, DSR, and the City of Nedlands.

With Hartru, the court is irrigated from underneath, with six flooded cells per court providing the moisture to the surface through capillary action. This means that no surface sprinklers are required, the surface stays moist, and the fine clay material will not be blown away in the wind. This means the courts can be used all day every day throughout the year. We expect our juniors and our adult members to enjoy the use of the courts, as well as the wider community. Tennis Australia will be training their WA based junior development squad at the courts also. Clay courts contribute greatly to young people learning the sport of tennis, as the ball moves more slowly on the court surface, allowing for long rallies, and children to greatly improve their standard of tennis. The need for the below ground cell construction, together with the importing of the court materials from the USA, make the construction quite costly, with the two floodlit courts costing approx. $500,000. The club wishes to thank the club members, who have been actively fund raising for almost a year through a registered project with Australian Sports Foundation; our business donors; and the generous contributions from Tennis Australia, the Department of Sport and Recreation, and the City of Nedlands.