The hard court is the main tennis surface for most clubs in the U.S. and Canada. The U.S. Open is played on hard courts as well as the majority of North American junior, league, collegiate, and professional events. Understanding the surface will help you leverage your game to take advantage of the surface. Here’s what you need to know:

Unless they’re poorly maintained, hard courts are flat and have even surfaces. This is important because it means the ball will bounce predictably the majority of the time. How is this information useful to you? If you can predict where the ball will go after it lands, you can take it on the rise.

Hitting the ball on the rise will take time away from your opponent. It is a good way to dictate points and stay in control of the tempo. You don’t need to hit harder or take more risk — you get to shorten your opponent’s recovery time just by hitting it sooner. That’s an advantage you can use on hard courts and similar flat surfaces but not on typical red clay.

Watch out for the court surface and observe if it is newish or worn out. The ball will bounce lower and faster if the courts have not been resurfaced in a long time. This means you have less time to prepare for your shots. You need to adjust by shortening your back swing and staying lower.

Some hard court surfaces are new and the material slows the ball and lets it bounce higher. On the slow hard courts, you want to be as patient as you would be on clay. It might help to be over-aggressive on very fast courts but, with slow hard courts, you need to construct your points and wait until you can step inside the baseline before getting aggressive.