What is a court pace index?
Some courts reward big serves, others neutralise them. A court pace index puts a number on it, so you can see how a tournament has really played rather than how it is described.
In short
A court pace index measures how many aces a tournament produces compared with an average court of the same tour, adjusted for who was serving and returning. 100 is average, 125 is a fast court, 75 a slow one. Big servers gain on fast courts, returners on slow ones, and total games tend to rise on fast courts.
Figures from our archive of 77,625 matches, updated 22 Oct 2026.
How our index works
We count how many aces each tournament gives compared with an average court of the same tour, for the same servers and returners. That adjustment matters: a week full of big servers produces lots of aces on any court, so raw ace counts would make that event look faster than it is. Our model explains every server's aces with the court, the server and the returner at the same time.
- 100 is the average court of the tour (ATP, Challenger or WTA).
- 125 means 25% more aces than an average court for the same players; 75 means 25% fewer.
- The 80% range shows how sure the figure is. It is wide early in a tournament and narrows as qualifying and main-draw matches come in.
- The figure is the court at 20 °C. Outdoors, aces rise by about 18% for every 10 °C, so the same court plays faster in a heatwave; we take the week's temperature out and show it beside the index, so a hot week and a cool week of the same event compare fairly. Women's events have no weather data yet and show the court as played.
- Early in a week the ace count is small, so the index also leans on serve points won at the venue, which settles faster; by the final the aces carry most of the weight.
Fastest and slowest ATP courts in 2026
Completed 2026 events with enough matches, index at 20 °C, as of 22 October 2026:
| Fastest | Pace | Slowest | Pace |
|---|---|---|---|
| Montpellier (indoor hard) | 156 | Monte Carlo (clay) | 63 |
| Stuttgart (grass) | 153 | Bucharest (clay) | 69 |
| Dallas (indoor hard) | 146 | Estoril (clay) | 69 |
| Chengdu (hard) | 141 | Barcelona (clay) | 72 |
The Grand Slams in 2026: Wimbledon 118, Australian Open 114, US Open 99 and the French Open 83. Surface is only part of the story: Madrid's clay (104) played close to an average court, well above Monte Carlo's (63).
How to use it
- Big servers gain most on fast courts: more free points, more holds, more tiebreaks.
- Returners and grinders gain on slow courts, where more serves come back and breaks are more common.
- Total games tend to rise on fast courts, because sets with few breaks run longer.
- Balls, weather, altitude and the court itself all play a part. The index measures the result, not the cause, and a court can change from one year to the next.