Sports Court Striping
In Greenville, SC

What Sports Court Striping Includes

Sports court striping is layout work with an unforgiving tolerance. A parking stall that lands an inch off is still a parking stall; a court line that lands an inch off changes whether a ball was in or out for the next decade.

The scope on a commercial or institutional property in the Upstate covers surface assessment and preparation, measuring and squaring the court from fixed control points, laying out the playing lines to the governing body’s published dimensions, masking and applying line paint in the correct sequence, and marking any secondary game lines the facility wants on the same slab.

Typical clients here are apartment and condominium communities, schools and colleges, churches, municipal parks, hotels, HOAs and corporate campuses — anywhere a slab of asphalt or concrete is doing double duty as a recreation asset.

Color and contrast are part of the design, not an afterthought. Where two or more games share one surface, the line colors have to be distinguishable at playing speed, which is a different bar from distinguishable while standing still and looking down.

Pickleball, Basketball, and Tennis Court Layouts

Pickleball has taken over most of the multi-court conversations we have in Greenville, so start there — and the published dimensions are unusually clear.

USA Pickleball states that a pickleball court measures 20 feet wide by 44 feet long for both singles and doubles, that each side has a 7-foot non-volley zone at the net, and that the net is 36 inches high at the sidelines and 34 inches at the center. Separately, on court construction, USA Pickleball states that a total playing surface of 30 feet by 60 feet is the minimum size recommended and that a total size of 34 feet by 64 feet is preferred, while the actual playing lines measure 20 feet by 44 feet.

That gap between the lines and the surface is the number that decides projects. People measure a 20 by 44 rectangle onto their slab, find it fits, and are then surprised that the finished court plays badly — because a player chasing a lob needs the run-out, and the run-out is what the 30 by 60 minimum is describing.

Element	Dimension	Source
Pickleball playing lines	20 ft wide by 44 ft long, singles and doubles	USA Pickleball
Pickleball non-volley zone	7 ft on both sides of the net	USA Pickleball
Pickleball net height	36 in at the sidelines, 34 in at the center	USA Pickleball
Pickleball total playing surface, minimum recommended	30 ft by 60 ft	USA Pickleball
Pickleball total playing surface, preferred	34 ft by 64 ft	USA Pickleball
Basketball court dimensions	Set by the governing body for the level of play	Confirm against your facility’s specification
Tennis court dimensions	Set by the governing body for the level of play	Confirm against your facility’s specification
Playground game markings	No governing dimension	Facility’s own layout

Basketball and tennis are deliberately left open in that table, and we would rather say so than publish a number. Court dimensions for those two differ by level of play and governing body, and we lay them out from the specification the facility is building to — a school athletic association’s, a university’s, a municipal parks standard — rather than from a figure copied off a web page. Tell us which standard applies and we will mark to it.

Converting a tennis court to pickleball. This is the most common request we get on this page, and it is arithmetic, not opinion. The question is not whether a 20 by 44 rectangle fits inside a tennis enclosure — several will. The question is how many courts fit once each one is given the 30 by 60 minimum recommended playing surface, plus circulation between courts and clearance to the fence. That answer comes from measuring your actual enclosure, including the fence line and any net post footings, because tennis facilities vary in total fenced area even when the playing lines match.

Two ways to do it. Overlay keeps the tennis lines and adds pickleball lines in a contrasting color on the same surface, which is cheap and reversible but produces a busy court. Conversion removes or covers the tennis layout and dedicates the surface to pickleball, which plays far better and is what most communities end up wanting once the courts get busy. We will lay out both options against your measured slab before you decide.

Playground Markings and Game Lines

Playground markings are the other half of this page, and they are governed by imagination, not by a rulebook.

Common layouts on Upstate school and church properties include hopscotch, four square, kickball diamonds, tetherball circles, running tracks around the perimeter, number grids and alphabet snakes, compass roses, and map or world outlines. Where a governing dimension exists — a basketball key on a school court, for instance — we mark to the facility’s specification. Where none exists, which is most of the time, the layout is set by the space, the age group and what the staff want to run.

Two practical points decide whether these last. The first is surface: playground markings go onto asphalt or concrete that is sound and clean, and the same bond rules apply as anywhere else — grit, pollen and standing dirt cost more markings than traffic does. The second is placement: a game line painted across a route children run every day wears out first, so laying out the games against the traffic pattern rather than into the middle of it buys years.

For durability, high-wear elements can be marked in a longer-life material while the decorative work stays in standard court paint, which keeps the budget where the wear actually is.