Light pole height is one of the most importance factors when it comes to new tennis court construction. If you would like to know how tall is the tennis court light pole, you are getting to a right place as we are going to introduce to you the standard and the most common pole heights, and discussing the issues related to inappropriate pole heights.
How tall is a tennis court lighting pole height?
Selecting the right pole height is essential for tennis court as it affects the overall lighting uniformity, shadow and brightness of the ground. However, not all tennis courts have the same pole height, as it varies with the level of competition and the specific lighting requirement. Let’s take a look at the following cases.
1. Recreational / residential tennis court
The common light pole height inside recreational tennis court is around 6 to 8 meters (20 to 26ft). If you have a low budget, we can adopt 4-pole 8 meters or 6-pole 6 meters pole height. It should give a satisfactory lighting outcome.
If the residential tennis court light pole is just 6-meter height, we will need at least 2 lamps per pole to achieve better lighting uniformity. Otherwise, the bright spot will easily create in the service boxes.
2. Commercial tennis court
If your tennis court is designed for commercial purpose such tennis club or community competition, the light pole height would become 8 to 12 meters (26 to 39ft). We need taller pole height in such the outdoor commercial tennis court because we can further eliminate the shadow of the tennis players, racquet and net.
6-pole, 8-poles (for single court) and 9-pole (for adjoining courts) arrangement are quite common for the commercial tennis court. Typically, we will mount around 1 to 2 lamps on each pole. Sometimes the two lamps are perpendicular to each other to achieve better coverage and lighting uniformity.
However, when designing the tennis court layout for commercial purpose, we need to take the spill light into account. This is because when the lights are mounted to such the height, a portion of light beam will escape the tennis court and scatter to the surrounding area. Thus, we need a holistic lighting design to avoid the light spill from tennis court. Contact our lighting engineer for free lighting advice and DIALux photometric report.
3. Professional tennis stadium
It should be serious when it comes to tennis stadium lighting for international tennis tournaments such as ATP Tour, WTA Tour, Wimbledon and etc. The lighting should have the highest standard – illuminance, uniformity, glare and shadowless. To fulfil such the rigorous lighting requirement, we will need the much taller light pole.
According to our experience, the light pole height of professional tennis arena or stadium is around 15 to 20 meters (50 to 66 ft). In fact, there is an interesting requirement imposed by ATP. It said the light pole height for ATP tennis court should be minimally 12m (40ft). This is reasonable because we can increase the lighting uniformity and reduce glare if the lights are mounted in such the height. In the more extreme cases, our clients have the high-mast pole of 22m (72ft) for the class I tennis court.
Tennis court lighting pole height issues
We are now understanding that the common light pole height is 6 to 8m for recreational tennis court, 8 to 12m for commercial and above 15m for international tennis tournament venues. However, tall poles or short poles layout have their own problems, let’s discuss and figure out the solutions.
1. Problems of having too tall tennis court light pole
What would happen if the tennis court light pole is too tall? Truly, if you ask the lighting engineer to select the pole height within the range of 6 to 8m, most of them would select 8m, as it is easier to achieve higher lighting uniformity.
Yet, if you are asking your neighbor, they would probably prefer as short light pole as possible. This is because the amount of spill light increases with pole height theoretically. To solve the light pollution issue, we can use the tennis court lights with smaller beam angle, so the light beams are more concentrated to the tennis area. Besides, we can see if there are trees, walls or other obstacles near the tennis court. If no, it is advised to adopt the pole height of around 6 to 7 meters.
Another issue of too high light pole is the light loss. If the pole height is increased, we will need to buy more luminaires to light up the same area. Therefore, to save the running cost of the tennis court lights, we shall use the shorter lamp pole and LED.
2. Problems of having too short tennis court light pole
If the light pole is too short, says lower than 5 meters, it may induce another issue. If the distance between the lighting fixture and tennis court is too short, bright spot would be easily created near the lamp pole. The light beam doesn’t have enough room to spread before reaching the tennis court.
Another problem is glare. As the tennis court light pole is short, the players may feel dazzling when they accidentally look at the light source. When hitting a tennis shot, we may need to frequently look upward and spot the ball. The glare may strain the athletes’ eyes. Therefore, when planning the tennis court lighting and pole layout, we should keep in mind that the light pole can’t be too tall or too short.
If you need further assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact our lighting engineer. We offer free lighting design for tennis court and other sports fields.
