Quad City Tennis Club offers rare grass-court experience with new courts
Tennis fans have all watched action from the Championships at Wimbledon at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club each summer and dreamed about what it would be like to play tennis on a grass court.
Now, with three new grass tennis courts ready for action at the Quad City Tennis Club in Moline, Ill., folks in the Quad Cities area don’t have to dream.
Quad City Tennis Club is set to host the Level 5 Open Lawn Tennis Championships on Aug. 29-30. The tournament includes play for eight doubles teams in each of the men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles brackets. The prize money of $1,800 will be divided evenly among the winners and finalists of the three brackets.
It will be the second tournament played on the grass courts, as the club opened the courts with a members-only tournament.
Grass Takes Root
The unique decision to put grass courts in the climate of the upper Midwest was the idea of the club owner, who traveled to Wimbledon and fell in love with the surface.
As the idea gained traction, club officials consulted with other clubs around the country that have grass courts, as well as golf courses in the area about the upkeep of grass surfaces.
Quad City Tennis Club now has six indoor hard courts, two outdoor hard courts and pickleball courts to go along with the grass courts, though club director Dylan Wiemers said that may change eventually.
“We do have aspirations of someday turning those other two outdoor courts into clay courts to have all three surfaces,” he said.
Quad City Tennis Club in Moline, Ill., has completed construction of three new grass tennis courts and an accompanying clubhouse.
Quad City Tennis Club will host the prize-money L5 Open Lawn Tennis Championships on Aug. 29-30, a doubles tournament.
Underneath the trio of grass tennis courts is an 80/20 mix of sand and dirt to help the grass both root and drain better.
- Quad City Tennis Club in Moline, Ill., has completed construction of three new grass tennis courts and an accompanying clubhouse.
- Quad City Tennis Club will host the prize-money L5 Open Lawn Tennis Championships on Aug. 29-30, a doubles tournament.
- Underneath the trio of grass tennis courts is an 80/20 mix of sand and dirt to help the grass both root and drain better.
The three new grass courts are the first ones built in Illinois in at least a decade. They join the All Iowa Lawn Tennis Club in Charles City, Iowa, as the lone grass tennis courts within USTA Iowa. Within the USTA Missouri Valley, Tower Grove Park in St. Louis also has three grass tennis courts. Read more about these facilities here.
The Quad City Tennis Club grass courts feature an accompanying clubhouse. The first public players to experience the grass courts were a father-son duo who traveled in from St. Louis and North Carolina.
Beneath the Surface
One of the secrets for Quad City Tennis Club is the unusual blend of materials underneath the grass. Instead of the typical dirt base, these courts have an 80/20 mix of sand and dirt to help the grass take better root and drain better with Midwest rains. It’s the same mix that you’d find underneath most outfields in Major League Baseball stadiums.
Besides durability, Wiemers said the grass surface provides truer bounces. It’s also better on participants’ knees and ankles.
“When you’re playing on grass, it kind of feels like you’re just walking on water almost,” he said. “And it’s a great feeling to play on it, to have consistent rallies. It’s just a unique experience.”
The grass courts had been under construction for the past two years. It takes a while for the grass to take root enough to even consider playing on it. In the third year of grass growth, Quad City Tennis Club hosted its first tournament, the members-only one, in early July. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held July 9.
Now, at the end of August, the dream becomes a reality with the Level 5 Open tournament.
“It’s something that I’ve been able to experience for the past two years,” Wiemers said. “Going from just seeing dirt to a whole facility is kind of surreal, even just to walk out and see it right next to my office. It couldn’t be more of a dream to be here and to get to experience history. We’re thankful to the people who have participated and gave us some good expertise on what they know.
“We’re really hoping that — through word of mouth, getting some people to come play on the courts and help out the Quad City Tennis Foundation, the nonprofit that supports it — the better it’s going to be maintaining and keeping the courts to a pristine level like it is right now.”
Check out videos of the Quad City Tennis Club grass courts by clicking here and here.
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