Wimbledon groundstaff reveal the secrets behind the world’s best grass courts – and how to maintain your lawn

Biology, Pythagoras' theorem, hobnobbing with royalty… it's not just 'cutting grass', explain Wimbledon's groundstaff.

It's the week before Wimbledon, and the place is already abuzz. Those who make the tournament tick are in "Championships Mode", with hoses strewn across the ground, Hawk-Eye getting tested, seats being cleaned, water dripping from the hanging baskets, and a variety of plants being transported across the site.

This final polish is exactly what you would expect from an event that screams pristine, a two-week spectacle that houses world-class talent for which high-definition televisions were made for.

At the heart of this operation are the groundstaff, a team that swells from 18 year-round to 31 during the championships, all tasked with a challenge no other grand slam tennis tournament faces - a surface that lives.

"Everything that happens on grass reflects on us," Will Brierley, the senior groundsperson for Wimbledon and permanent member of the team since 2006, tells i. "Weather is always our challenge because it's the one thing we can't control. One of our mottos is 'control the controllable'. We do everything we can to make sure these courts are as pristine as possible."

It is a never-ending process. Brierley quotes a saying from Wimbledon's museum: "As it ends, we begin." Just days after the tournament finishes, the groundstaff start to renovate and renew, beginning on Centre Court and Court One, with the grass either heavily scarified or taken up completely.

Invariably, that depends on the level of weeds. But a steaming process first trialled in 2017 - thanks to a team from Holland - is now implemented across the main courts. It can take up to eight hours per court, and helps kill everything that is not wanted.

Unsurprisingly, Wimbledon is at the top of the lawn game. It has worked with the Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI) in Yorkshire since 1992 on trials to find out which are the best grasses for tennis.

Today, Wimbledon use 100 per cent Perennial Ryegrass (available in your local garden centre), which is preferred to Fescue or bent that can both wear out more quickly. But they need a lot of it - 10 tonnes of seed every year along with 200 tonnes of soil.

After the autumn renovation, the groundstaff work around the weather during the winter, keeping the height of the grass to 13mm to minimise the stress heading into spring, where slowly the lawns are cut down millimetre by millimetre until they are at their match-ready 8mm heights.

This spring renovation - where groundstaff are busy mowing and painting the lines -prepares the courts first for the members. They will arrive to play from mid-May and are allowed on all courts bar Centre and One.

Then, in the days leading up the championships, players begin arriving for practice.

"When people always say 'all you do is cut grass', I actually try to explain that I needed my science at school, my biology, my plant soils' science, I needed my maths to work out these rates," says Brierley.

"Things like Pythagoras's theorem, which when you're in school you're like 'What is the point in this?' but we actually use that when we're marking out the courts, to get the perfect angles."

Matthew Gibson is another well qualified member of the groundstaff. He studied sports turf for two years, did a one-year management top-up, and worked his first Wimbledon in 2012. As we wander the grounds, Carlos Alcaraz, the men's top seed and recent winner of Queen's can be seen clutching a bag from the Wimbledon shop, British No 2 Dan Evans is walking back from practice, Victoria Azarenka is on the way to start hers, and Greg Rusedski is filming, presumably, for the BBC.

It's part and parcel of the job, Gibson says, brushing dead bits of grass one minute, brushing shoulders with tennis star and royalty the next.

"It's a little bit strange but you know it comes with the territory of this place and how prestigious it is," says Gibson, who along with the other permanent groundstaff team will head onto Centre Court for the presentation after the men's final.

"You can feel a little out of place when standing at the net and you have the Princess of Wales coming straight over saying, 'Great tournament, well done everyone'. You're kind of asking 'How did I get here?'

"From shaking hands with Kate, then Novak Djokovic turns around and says, 'The courts are great guys, well done.' It's a surreal moment to be stood there talking to them, but it's nice to hear the guy who's just won Wimbledon compliment the courts. He walked down the line and shook all of our hands."

Djokovic is favourite once more to win the men's singles He is also partial to eating blades of grass in the aftermath of his triumph. A novel celebration, but his army of fans needn't worry.

"What you'll find is that by the time Novak has won and he's gone down for his dinner of a blade or two of grass, by that point we've gone past point where the plant has used up everything that has been put into it. It should be at a pure state," says Brierley.

"It's not had a recent fertiliser application, it's not had a touch of iron, it's not had any of the weed chemical which went down months ago. I wouldn't have a plateful myself but there's no issue having a couple blades."

Lawncare tips from Wimbledon experts

Budget permitting, a once-a-year reset every August or September would do wonders for your lawn, and can be helped by the following:

1. Aeration (making holes) relieves compaction. Allows healthy nutrients into the soil profile.

2. Scarification removes dead grass in the lawn, gives space for healthy grass to grow (and new seed)

3. Sand top dressing fills in the holes made during aeration, makes a healthy soil profile

4. Rye grass seed then has space to grow in and establish. Ryegrass great for durability, eg. Kids playing, dogs running, hosting tennis tournaments…

5. Regular watering at least once a day for all the new seed to grow

And tips during a hosepipe ban? It's not easy, the team admit, but any moisture helps, including use of a watering can. Keeping grass cuts to a minimum will also reduce stress on the lawn.

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