Game, set, catch (of the day): An architect has served up plans for an underwater tennis court in Dubai. Photo / Concept Studio.
Game, set, catch (of the day): An architect has served up plans for an underwater tennis court in Dubai. Photo / Concept Studio.
It's traditionally played on grass and clay, but could tennis matches one day take place in a waterproof bubble in an "underwater Wimbledon"?
An architect has served up plans for an underwater tennis court complete with a massive curved roof that he envisages would keep the water out and let players see fish swimming above.
He wants to build the glass clad-court in Dubai, which has a track record of pushing the boundaries of architecture and engineering, by building the Burj Tower - the tallest skyscraper in the world - and the man-made Palm Islands, for example.
However, engineers warn that such a design may be prohibitively expensive and incredibly difficult to execute.
Polish architect Krzysztof Kotala, 30, who has a Master of Science in Architecture from Krakow Polytechnic, is looking for investors to turn his dream into reality.
Sarah Fray, director of engineering and technical services at the Institution of Structural Engineers in London, said that one of the biggest challenges would be to create the large span of glass to cover the court, which would have to be at least 108ft (33 metres)wide to accommodate the court and spectators. A concept image is shown
The owner of 8 + 8 Concept Studio in Warsaw, said: 'This will be something original. It should be somewhere where there is the tradition of tennis. Dubai is perfect for this idea.'
Mr Kotala said he believes the idea has strong commercial potential and would combine the best of technology, ecology and sport.
Tennis fan Tim Denney from Raynes Park near Wimbledon - the home of the iconic British event - said: 'What a brilliant idea and an amazing setting. It would certainly be the most unique location in the world to stage a game.
'I hope he gets some serious backers and makes this happen. I'd love to get tickets and go to the first match.'
However, while spectators may be enthusiastic, engineers thinks the project is unlikely to come off because of technical difficulties and cost.
Sarah Fray, director of engineering and technical services at the Institution of Structural Engineers in London, told MailOnline that one of the biggest challenges would be to create the large span of glass to cover the court.
She said this would have to be at least 108 ft (33 metres) wide to accommodate the court and spectators.
Ms Fray said: 'I don't know if you could play tennis in it - there's light refracting above and I don't know how you'd control it. I can't imagine players not finding the fish distracting either.' A concept of the building from the player's point of view is shown.
Currently, flat panels of glass can be manufactured in single pieces around 32 ft (10 metres) long - such as panels used in Apple's store in Turkey - but new machinery would have to be invented to make larger panes of curved glass, the type of which would be needed for the design.
'The more joints there are, the more likely it would leak,' Ms Fray said.
'The design would also need to be thought out in terms of how it would react to an impact.
'Any boat would have to be kept well clear and a dropped anchor would destroy it,' she warned, adding that the design would have to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis too.
'The technological challenges are big, but the human challenges are bigger,' she said, explaining that there would have to be a way for the structure to be connected to the surface and easily evacuate people in the event of an emergency.
However, she conceded that the arched shape of the underwater court is a good idea because it's the best way of resisting pressure, the likes of which would be vast, particularly if the court was submerged at a decent depth beneath the waves.
This seems to be the case in the concept drawing, where large fish and rays are seen swimming above the court and the court is located bear Palm Islands.
'The arch is the right sort of structural shape but the challenge of making technology to create huge pieces of glass for a stadium event is enormous - and the glass would weigh possibly a hundred tonnes,' Ms Fray continued.
It would also have to be incredibly thick to cope with the pressure exerted by the water.
If funds were raised to build 'underwater Wimbledon' it would be difficult to construct and would have to be built wet, she explained.
'You'd have to construct a watertight base, sit the glass on top and seal it and then pump the water out.'
Ms Fray said that while heavy objects are 'quite easy' to manoeuvre underwater and getting the court into position there would be feasible, constructing and moving the materials above the waves would be a monumental challenge and cost an incredible amount of money.
'I would be surprised if someone would afford to do this,' she said, adding, 'it would make Wimbledon's retracting roof quite cheap'.
There is also the question of whether, if built, the stadium would be any good for a game of tennis.
'I don't know if you could play tennis in it - there's light refracting above and I don't know how you'd control it,' Ms Fray said.
'I can't imagine players not finding the fish distracting either.
Will Stewart, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) added that the design may not appear as bright inside as the concept images suggest.
He explained the glass would have to be many metres thicker at the edges than at the centre of the arch, so views of the ocean would not be as bright as they are in the concept pictures.
'Water in general and seawater in particular is not colourless,' meaning that the outside may look murky.
'Pure water is greeny blue, seawater varies but is more coloured,' he told MailOnline.
'For this reason it gets dark quite quickly as you go down in the sea, so the depth of water would have to be more limited than the diagrams suggest if the court was not to be totally dark!'
Whether an underwater tennis court could form part of an underwater city, imagined in many sci-fi films, remains to be seen.
But there have been plans for a number of underwater projects to be built in Dubai in recent years, including plans for a submerged villa complex - and work could begin soon - so anything is possible.
