Public Tennis Courts in Riyadh: Democratizing Access to the Sport
Public tennis courts — courts owned and operated by municipal authorities and available to all residents at minimal or no cost — represent the most important infrastructure category for the long-term democratization of tennis in Saudi Arabia. While private clubs serve affluent segments and the Riyadh Tennis Academy serves elite development, public courts provide the accessible, affordable playing opportunities that enable tennis participation across all demographic and economic segments of Saudi society.
The current state of public tennis courts in Riyadh and across Saudi Arabia is mixed. Significant progress has been made in expanding the number of publicly accessible courts, but gaps in geographic coverage, maintenance standards, and amenity provision mean that public tennis in Saudi Arabia has not yet achieved the level of accessibility that characterizes mature tennis markets.
Current Public Court Inventory
As of 2026, Riyadh has approximately 45 to 50 publicly accessible tennis courts, distributed across municipal parks, community sports centers, and government-operated recreational facilities. This figure includes courts directly operated by the municipality, courts at government-owned sports facilities open to public use, and courts at semi-public institutions (universities, military installations) with public access programs.
The geographic distribution of public courts in Riyadh is uneven, with higher concentrations in established residential neighborhoods — particularly in the northern and central districts of the city where higher-income populations and expatriate communities are concentrated. Newer residential districts, southern Riyadh, and lower-income neighborhoods are significantly underserved, with some areas of the city having no public courts within a 20-kilometer radius.
The quality of public courts varies considerably. The most recently constructed courts — built to STF specifications with proper drainage, cushioned hard court surfaces, LED lighting, and surrounding amenities — provide a playing experience comparable to mid-range private clubs. Older courts, some dating back to the 1990s or earlier, may have deteriorated surfaces, inadequate lighting, missing nets, and limited or no surrounding amenities. The inconsistency in quality is a significant barrier to participation — players who encounter a poorly maintained court on their first visit to a public facility may not return.
Booking and Access Systems
The introduction of digital booking systems for public tennis courts represents one of the most significant accessibility improvements in recent years. The STF, in partnership with Riyadh municipality, has implemented an online and mobile booking platform that allows residents to reserve court time at participating public facilities. The platform shows real-time availability, accepts online payment for nominal court rental fees, and sends confirmation and reminder notifications.
Court rental fees at public facilities are set at nominal levels — typically SAR 20 to SAR 50 ( to ) per hour — designed to cover basic maintenance costs while keeping access affordable for all income levels. During off-peak hours (early morning, weekday daytime), some facilities offer free access to promote utilization and provide opportunities for residents who may not be able to afford even nominal fees.
The booking system has improved utilization efficiency by reducing no-shows (through prepayment and cancellation policies), enabling better maintenance scheduling (by providing predictable usage patterns), and generating usage data that informs facility development decisions. Before the booking system’s introduction, public courts operated on a first-come-first-served basis that led to underutilization during some periods and frustrating queues during peak hours.
Maintenance and Operations
The maintenance of public tennis courts is managed through a combination of municipal operations staff and contracted maintenance providers. The maintenance regime for well-managed public courts includes daily surface cleaning and debris removal, weekly net inspection and adjustment, monthly line repainting as needed, quarterly surface inspection and repair, and annual major maintenance including resurfacing every five to seven years.
The reality is that many public courts fall short of this maintenance standard, particularly older facilities that were constructed before the current era of tennis infrastructure investment. Deferred maintenance has resulted in cracked surfaces, faded lines, damaged nets, and non-functional lighting at some locations — issues that the STF and municipality are addressing through a phased renovation program but that currently affect the playability and safety of a portion of the public court inventory.
The STF’s renovation program has identified approximately 20 public courts in Riyadh that require significant refurbishment, with a projected investment of SAR 15 million to SAR 25 million ( million to .7 million) to bring all courts to a consistent standard. The program prioritizes courts in underserved neighborhoods and facilities with the highest potential utilization, ensuring that renovation investment generates maximum participation impact.
Community Programs at Public Courts
Public courts serve as the venue for community tennis programs operated by the STF and its partner organizations. These programs include beginner courses for children and adults, free introduction sessions during national sports participation events, social tennis events and community tournaments, school physical education sessions conducted at nearby public courts, and senior tennis programs targeting older adults seeking low-impact physical activity.
The community programs are essential for converting public court availability into actual participation. Courts alone do not create tennis players; programmed activities, coaching, and organized play provide the structure and motivation that translate facility access into sustained engagement. The STF’s investment in community programming — coaches, equipment, organization, and promotion — is as important as its investment in court construction for expanding the tennis participation base.
Future Development Plans
The STF’s public court development plan envisions a significant expansion of publicly accessible courts across Riyadh and other Saudi cities. The target is to increase the number of public courts in Riyadh from approximately 50 to 120 by 2030, with a geographic distribution that ensures every resident is within 10 kilometers of a public court.
The development plan includes construction of new court clusters in underserved neighborhoods, refurbishment of existing courts to consistent quality standards, installation of LED lighting at all public courts to enable evening play, addition of covered or semi-enclosed courts at selected locations, and integration of digital booking and maintenance systems across all facilities.
The funding model for public court development combines STF investment, municipal infrastructure budgets, and private-public partnerships in which commercial operators develop courts in exchange for operating concessions. The PPP model is particularly attractive for locations where commercial programming — coaching, events, food and beverage — can generate revenue that offsets the cost of court provision.
The Role of Public Courts in the Tennis For All Initiative
The STF’s ambitious Tennis For All program — launched in partnership with the Saudi Sports For All Federation — places public courts at the center of its strategy to introduce 60,000 young people to tennis through schools nationwide. The program enrolled 13,000 participants in its first 16-week edition and expanded to 30,000 in its second cycle, with public courts serving as the primary venue for after-school practice sessions that complement in-school introduction programs. The initiative targets 400 schools by 2025, and each participating school requires access to nearby public courts for students to continue playing beyond the classroom introduction.
This integration between school programming and public court access creates a virtuous cycle: school programs generate demand for court time, which justifies investment in new public courts, which in turn enables more students to transition from classroom introduction to active participation. Without adequate public court infrastructure, the Tennis For All program’s success would be limited to classroom engagement without the practice opportunities necessary for sustained participation. The STF’s recognition of this dynamic has elevated public court development from a nice-to-have amenity to a strategic prerequisite for the success of its flagship participation program.
The community programs operating on public courts also include clinics affiliated with the WTA Foundation’s collaboration with the Saudi Tennis Federation, which has focused on community tennis initiatives, women’s health programs, and leadership development in sport. These partnership-driven programs bring international coaching expertise and program design to public court settings, enhancing the quality and credibility of community tennis offerings.
Public Courts and the Padel Connection
An emerging trend in public court development is the co-location of tennis and padel facilities within the same public parks and recreation centers. Saudi Arabia’s extraordinary padel growth — from virtually no courts in 2021 to over 1,097 courts across 431 facilities by 2025 — has created demand for combined tennis-padel public facilities that serve both sports communities. The Saudi Padel Committee’s strategic goal of installing 1,000 additional courts across 13 regions by 2030 intersects directly with public tennis court development planning, creating opportunities for shared infrastructure investment.
Co-located tennis and padel facilities offer several advantages for public provision: shared parking, shared lighting infrastructure, shared booking systems, and shared community programming create economies of scale that reduce per-court costs. Players who arrive at a combined facility for padel may discover tennis, and vice versa, creating cross-pollination between racquet sport communities. The growing popularity of padel among younger Saudi demographics — with over 400,000 amateur players nationwide — provides a gateway to tennis for participants who might not otherwise encounter the sport.
Several pilot projects are underway to test the combined tennis-padel public facility model, with the first completed installations demonstrating strong utilization across both sports and validating the operational synergies that proponents have anticipated. The Saudi Padel Committee’s strategic expansion plan — targeting 1,000 additional courts across 13 regions and 26 cities — intersects directly with the STF’s public court development timeline, creating opportunities for coordinated planning and shared investment that benefit both sports.
The co-location model also addresses the demographic diversity of racquet sport preferences. Younger Saudi demographics (under 30) have shown particularly strong affinity for padel’s social, team-oriented format, while older demographics and expatriate communities may prefer tennis’s established competitive structure. Combined facilities serve both demographics under a single roof, maximizing facility utilization across all age groups and playing preferences.
International Benchmarking: Lessons from Public Court Systems Worldwide
The STF’s public court development strategy draws on international best practices from countries that have successfully democratized tennis access through public court provision. France’s public court system — with over 30,000 courts, the majority publicly owned — provides a model of how government investment in tennis infrastructure can create broad-based participation. The French Tennis Federation’s partnership with municipal governments ensures that courts are maintained to consistent standards and that programming is available to all residents regardless of income level.
Australia’s public court model, where local councils operate tennis facilities as community assets with modest booking fees and subsidized coaching programs, offers another template that is relevant to Saudi Arabia’s context. The Australian model’s emphasis on community-based management — with local tennis clubs operating public courts under lease arrangements — provides an operational framework that balances public accessibility with sustainable facility management.
The United States’ park-based tennis court system, while historically successful in providing widespread court access, offers cautionary lessons about the consequences of deferred maintenance and inadequate programming. Many US public courts have deteriorated due to insufficient maintenance funding, demonstrating the importance of lifecycle cost planning in public court investment — a lesson that the STF is incorporating into its development planning.
Surface Standards and Climate Adaptation
Public courts in Riyadh face the same climate challenges that affect all outdoor tennis infrastructure in the Kingdom. Summer temperatures exceeding 45 degrees Celsius render unshaded outdoor courts unusable for four to five months per year, and even during cooler months, direct sun exposure creates playing conditions that many recreational players find uncomfortable. The STF’s public court specifications increasingly incorporate shade structures — tensile membrane canopies, pergola-style covers, or semi-enclosed designs — that extend usable playing hours and reduce the health risks associated with sun exposure.
The court surface specifications for public courts are calibrated to balance durability, cost, and playability. Standard non-cushioned acrylic surfaces applied to asphalt or concrete bases provide the most cost-effective option, with installation costs approximately 40 percent lower than cushioned systems. These surfaces are appropriate for recreational and intermediate-level play and can withstand the heavy use patterns typical of public facilities. Higher-traffic public courts may receive cushioned acrylic surfaces that provide improved comfort and reduce joint stress, particularly where the court serves regular competitive players or coaching programs.
LED lighting installation at public courts has become a priority within the development plan, recognizing that evening hours represent the most comfortable and highest-demand playing window in Riyadh’s climate. Modern LED court lighting systems provide uniform illumination at 500 to 750 lux while consuming significantly less energy than older metal halide systems, reducing ongoing operating costs that are critical for the financial sustainability of public court operations.
Measuring Success: Participation Data and Impact Assessment
The STF has implemented a data collection framework to measure the impact of public court investment on tennis participation. Court booking data provides granular information on utilization rates, peak demand periods, user demographics, and participation trends across the public court network. This data enables evidence-based decisions about future court development, maintenance prioritization, and programming allocation.
Early data from the booking platform indicates encouraging utilization patterns: public courts in well-served neighborhoods achieve 60 to 70 percent utilization during the comfortable months (October through April), with evening sessions consistently at capacity. The data also reveals geographic disparities in utilization that correlate with court quality and programming availability — reinforcing the importance of consistent maintenance and active community programming for converting court availability into actual participation.
The STF’s participation targets for public courts are ambitious: 100,000 unique annual users of public courts in Riyadh by 2030, up from an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 currently. Achieving this target requires not only physical court expansion but also sustained investment in the programming, coaching, and community engagement that convert court availability into active tennis participation.
The connection between public court access and the broader Saudi tennis investment ecosystem is fundamental. The billions invested in elite tournaments, international player appearances, and broadcast rights deals generate visibility and inspiration — but public courts are where that inspiration translates into action. Every child who watches Jannik Sinner or Coco Gauff on television and wants to pick up a racquet needs a public court within reach. The STF’s grassroots development strategy recognizes this reality, positioning public courts as the essential infrastructure that converts elite-level investment into mass participation outcomes.
Public courts may lack the glamour of the Six Kings Slam or the prestige of the WTA Finals, but they are arguably the most important infrastructure in Saudi tennis. They are where the next generation of Saudi tennis players will hit their first balls, where recreational players will discover the joy of the sport, and where tennis will either become a sport for all Saudi residents or remain a pursuit of the privileged few. The investment in public courts is, ultimately, an investment in the democratization of tennis in Saudi Arabia.