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You like to play badminton but you can’t seem to find a place nearby to practice the sport. You only have tennis courts in parks and other outdoor areas, and the nearest badminton court is far from walking distance. You just want to relax and find the perfect place to play. If this is you, don’t worry. You’re in luck!
It is entirely possible to play badminton inside a tennis court, once you have successfully converted it into a badminton court by drawing lines and installing the nets at their appropriate heights. However, playing badminton on a tennis court is only really possible for recreational purposes, and does not give you the best badminton experience. You may also want to play AirBadminton in these courts because of the inherent weather conditions that tennis courts are typically exposed to.
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Is a Badminton Court the Same Size as a Tennis Court?
The dimensions of tennis and badminton courts are easily the most obvious difference between the two sports. A tennis court is more than three times the size of a badminton court, which makes it the bigger court out of the two.
The standard size of a badminton court, set by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) for doubles, is 20 feet (6.1 meters) in width, and 44 feet (13.4 meters) in length. The width of the badminton court is modified to 17 feet (5.18 meters) for singles events.
On the other hand, the standard size for a tennis court is 36 feet wide (10.97 meters) and 78 feet (23.77 meters) long for doubles, with the width modified to 27 feet (8.23 meters) for singles. This is the standard size set by the International Tennis Federation (ITF).
| Singles (in feet) | Width | Length | Area |
| Badminton | 17 feet | 44 feet | 748 square feet |
| Tennis | 27 feet | 78 feet | 2106 square feet |
| Singles (in meters) | Width | Length | Area |
| Badminton | 5.2 meters | 13.4 meters | 69.7 square meters |
| Tennis | 8.2 meters | 23.8 meters | 195.2 square meters |
| Doubles (in feet) | Width | Length | Area |
| Badminton | 20 feet | 44 feet | 880 square feet |
| Tennis | 36 feet | 78 feet | 2808 square feet |
| Doubles (in meters) | Width | Length | Area |
| Badminton | 6.1 meters | 13.4 meters | 81.7 square meters |
| Tennis | 11 meters | 23.8 meters | 261.8 square meters |
From the above numbers, a singles tennis court is 2.8 times bigger than a singles badminton court and a full tennis court is 3.5 times bigger than a full badminton court in terms of area! There’s certainly more than enough space on a tennis court to fit a badminton court.
The difference does not merely end in the surface area of each court. It also extends to their surface types and net heights, which are basically anchored on the intention of play for each sport.
Badminton, for instance, is primarily designed to be an indoor sport with a very light shuttlecock that weighs only around six grams. Tennis, however, is played outdoors with the possibility of the tennis ball being hit hard and flying meters away. Due to how the sports are intended to be played, the net heights are quite different. A badminton net is supposed to be five feet and one inch (1.55 meters) off the ground while a tennis net is three feet (0.9 meters) off the ground in the center and 3.5 feet (1.1 meters) at the poles.
Therefore, the badminton net is approximately 66% higher off the ground than a tennis net is! That’s quite a big difference and can affect gameplay in a huge way. So ideally, you’d want to find a way to raise the net if possible.
How Do You Convert a Tennis Court Into a Badminton Court?
Knowing the difference between court sizes, surface materials, and net height is essential to convert a tennis court into a badminton court. You should note, however, that converting a tennis court does not guarantee a fully great badminton experience for players. Hence, this is something that you only would want to do if you plan on playing badminton for recreational purposes, and not for a competitive or professional game.
Converting a tennis court into a badminton court is pretty easy. You just have to paint or draw a new set of lines, ideally in a different color to that of the existing tennis court, to differentiate the boundaries of the badminton court. It is worth taking note as well that while the tennis court is 3.5 times bigger than the badminton court, there are still spaces outside the court itself that you can use to paint the boundaries of a badminton court. Hence, you can actually fit four badminton courts in just one tennis court, including the spaces outside of it.
However, if you can’t or don’t want to paint new lines, you can use the tennis court’s service boundary (only one side) as a makeshift badminton court. Interestingly, these boundaries are very close to the dimensions of a single’s badminton court.
The next thing that you would want to do is to either install a new net for your badminton court or use the existing nets of the tennis court and raise them up.
Furthermore, you have to make sure that the area in which the converted tennis court is located is not exposed to windy conditions because it will severely affect the play of badminton due to the lightness of the shuttlecock. Some tennis courts, however, are actually located indoors, so this would not be a problem if that is the case.
Now, while there are different surface materials used for tennis such as carpet, grass, clay, and hardcourt, none of them are actually the approved court surface of the BWF, which is a wooden sprung floor with a vinyl impact absorbent covering and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) mat. This is also the reason why it is not possible to use a converted tennis court for a professional badminton game because, while playing badminton is still possible on these surface types, it severely limits the skills of the players inside the converted court.
How Do You Play Badminton on a Tennis Court?
If you’re playing badminton on a tennis court, it’ll only be for recreational purposes. Just hit the shuttlecock across the net to each other and try to hit inbounds! At first, try to just keep the shuttlecock in play as much as possible to get in many hits. Once players get better, you can try to play more competitively to score points on each other.
Note that you won’t have service boundaries labeled well on a tennis court unless you paint new lines yourself. Therefore, you won’t really be able to honor badminton’s service rules and will have to just serve directly to the other player.
If you want a more competitive badminton experience but still want to play outdoors, consider looking into AirBadminton, which is much more similar to indoor competitive badminton than simply hitting around on a tennis court.
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