Updated August 2026 · Hyderabad, Telangana
ChampCourts built a floodlit, fully enclosed multi-sport court for a school in Hyderabad: basketball plus a marked racquet court on one 8-layer acrylic surface over a new PCC base. The 28-day concrete cure set the calendar. Indicative from ₹155/sqft ex-GST. Get a free itemised estimate →
What did ChampCourts build at this school in Hyderabad?
One slab carrying two sports, inside a fully fenced enclosure. A basketball key and mounted hoop at one end. A 44 × 20 ft racquet court through the middle. Underneath, a new plain cement concrete base; on top, an 8-layer acrylic system. Floodlights for evening play, and two line sets laid in sequence. White first, yellow over it.
The court sits in the school's own walled courtyard, next to a working playground, in the city where ChampCourts keeps its registered office, at Lepakshi Colony, Nehrunagar, Hyderabad 500026. Hyderabad is the one place in India where our team can be on a site the same morning a principal calls. On a school job that buys something practical: the build gets supervised by us, instead of handed to a contractor and checked on afterwards.
Every picture on this page came off this project. Reinforcement mesh before the pour. The bare grey base curing. One applicator hand-painting a line. The white set complete and the yellow overlay added afterwards. Every photograph was taken on site, in build order. No renders, no stock.
How do you fit a full court into a walled school courtyard?
You set the enclosure out before the concrete, not after. The courtyard walls fix the maximum footprint on day one, so the fence line, the post footings and the court boundary are surveyed together. Then the slab is poured inside them. Retro-fitting a fence to a finished court is what eats run-off.
Tight urban site. Painted boundary walls down the long sides, a playground running alongside, no greenfield margin to borrow from. The first photograph shows why the sequence matters: reinforcement mesh and enclosure posts standing together inside the courtyard, before any concrete arrives. Each post sits on its own 300 × 300 × 600 mm M20 footing at 2.5–3.0 m centres. Space them wider than that and the fabric hammocks inside a season.
Order also protects the run-off. A basketball court needs clear space past the baselines and sidelines, and on a walled site every centimetre lost to a badly placed fence comes straight out of the playing area. Surveying the fence and the court as one exercise is how the full 44 × 20 ft racquet footprint survived this courtyard.
Why acrylic instead of interlocking tiles for a school court?
Because a school court is a daily-abuse surface that also has to be repairable. An 8-layer acrylic system is bonded and seamless. Nothing to lift, trap grit or trip a child. It can be recoated in place years later without lifting the court. Interlocking tiles suit different sites; this one wanted seamless.
Here is what the eight actually are. One acrylic primer, which seals the concrete's porosity. Two resurfacer coats to fill micro-cracks and level the slab. Three cushion coats for impact, and they steady the ball bounce as well. Two UV-resistant colour coats on top of all that. Line marking is the finishing step and is not one of the eight. Surface life is 5–7 years, and the system can be recoated when the site calls for it.
A seamless surface has no joint for a monsoon to silt up and no edge for a running child to catch. It cleans with plain water and nothing else. And because the colour coats are pigmented acrylic and not paint, the blue field and the green surround hold through Telangana summers instead of chalking off.
How was the base built, and why does concrete curing set the calendar?
The base is plain cement concrete at M20 grade over a 70 mm granular sub-base, and it must cure a full 28 days before any acrylic touches it. That cure is the longest fixed item in the whole programme. Coating early is the single most common way an acrylic court fails in its first year.
The second photograph is the court at its least photogenic and most important moment: a flat grey M20 slab against the painted playground wall, finished and doing nothing. There is nothing here to speed up. Plain cement concrete reaches its design strength on a schedule set by chemistry, and the Bureau of Indian Standards practice behind IS 456 is where the 28 days come from.
Coat a slab that is still releasing moisture and the primer cannot key into it. The acrylic then blisters, delaminates at the edges, or shows a map of the slab's shrinkage cracks within a single monsoon. The repair is a strip-back, not a touch-up. A school buying a court in June should be told plainly that the surface goes down in July, and any supplier who promises otherwise is quoting a repair it has not disclosed.
How do two sports get marked on one slab without confusing players?
By colour-separating the line sets and laying them in sequence. The primary sport's lines went down first, in white. The second sport's were overlaid afterwards in yellow, on the same surface. A player reads only the colour belonging to the game being played, and ignores the other set completely.
The photographs prove that sequence rather than assert it. One frame shows a single applicator crouched with a brush and a small pot, hand-painting a white line onto the blue field, the playground a few metres behind. No machine. No spray rig. The next two show the white set complete and the court still carrying no yellow at all. Only in the final aerials does the yellow overlay appear, and the basketball hoop with it.
The overlay works because the footprints cooperate. A BWF badminton court and a USA Pickleball court share an identical 44 × 20 ft outer rectangle. The differences live in the internal lines and the net height, not the boundary. That is what lets one marked rectangle serve a racquet sport while a FIBA-proportioned key and hoop occupy the end of the same enclosure.
What makes an enclosed school court safe for daily student use?
The specification of the fence, not the fact of it. Chain-link to IS 2721 over a heavy-galvanised core, knuckled on both edges at player height, 50 × 50 mm aperture, 3.0 m high, on medium-class GI posts hot-dip galvanised and concreted in. Every one of those lines is a safety decision, not a price line.
Knuckled selvage is the one most buyers never ask about and the one that matters most in a school. Twisted or barbed selvage at the top and bottom of the fabric will lacerate a child who runs into it chasing a ball, and it cannot be retrofitted. It is decided when the fabric is bought. A 50 × 50 mm aperture keeps balls inside; the 65–75 mm mesh routinely sold as 50 loses them over the wall.
Then the steel. Hot-dip galvanising to IS 4736 comes out matte grey with a visible spangle. The chrome-shiny alternative is electro-galvanised, and it rusts through in one or two monsoons, which on a school perimeter means sharp, weakened wire at chest height. Posts sit on individual concrete footings, never rammed into soil. One leaning post slackens the whole run.
How much light does a school court need for after-school play?
Specify the lighting class, never the wattage. EN 12193 Class III, 200 lux maintained with uniformity of at least 0.6, is the right band for school training and recreational play. Class II at 300 lux suits club and regional standard. A "400 W floodlight" tells a principal nothing about whether the court is playable.
The payoff on this project is the floodlighting: the enclosure itself carries the fixtures, so the same court is lit for play after dark. For a school that is the whole commercial case. A courtyard that only worked in daylight now works for coaching after last period and for weekend use, on the same slab, for the cost of getting the lighting right once.
Where the fixtures go is not negotiable. Floodlights on both long sides, symmetrically, never on the baselines. A baseline fixture shines straight into the eyes of the player receiving serve. Acceptance is the other half of it. Get a measured lux grid written into the order and hand the court over against that, not against a verbal promise, because the fixture count comes out of a lighting design published under EN 12193 and not out of a rule of thumb.
How was the school's daily routine protected during the build?
By collapsing the noisy work into the fewest possible phases and putting the long wait in the middle. Enclosure posts and reinforcement went in together, so one dusty phase covered both. Then 28 days of curing, during which nothing happens on site at all. Then coats and marking, which are quiet, low-plant work.
That sequence is visible across the photographs. The base-prep frame shows mesh and posts standing at the same time, not one after the other: one mobilisation for the heavy work instead of two. The marking frame shows a lone applicator with a hand brush, working a few metres from the school's playground equipment. That is exactly the kind of work that can share a site with a running school day.
The 28-day cure is the part principals under-appreciate. It is dead time on the calendar. It is also 28 days when the courtyard is simply a fenced-off slab: no vehicles, no compressors, nobody on site. Plan the pour against your own term calendar and both the loud phase and the cure fall where they disrupt least. Worth settling before the order goes in.
What does a court like this cost to build?
Indicatively, from ₹155/sqft ex-GST for the surface and its base: ₹90/sqft for the M20 PCC base plus ₹65/sqft onwards for the 8-layer acrylic system with line marking included. Enclosure and floodlighting are priced separately, per site. Final cost depends on site condition, location and scope.
To put that on real footprints: an 880 sqft racquet court on a new base starts in the region of ₹1.4 lakh ex-GST, and a full 7,200 sqft basketball court with run-off starts in the region of ₹11 lakh ex-GST. This project's exact billed area is not published here, so treat both as reference bands rather than a quote for the court in these photographs. A 5-layer acrylic system at ₹47/sqft onwards is the economy alternative where budget is tight.
Fencing is priced on fence area, running feet multiplied by height. Lighting is priced on the EN 12193 class you choose, not on wattage. Payment on supply-and-install work runs 50% on signing the proforma invoice, 40% on dispatch of material and 10% at handover, though the breakup varies deal by deal. Every figure above is indicative and ex-GST; GST at 18% applies.
Specification strip — what was on this court
| Item | Specification | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Surface system | 8-layer acrylic — primer, 2× resurfacer, 3× cushion, 2× colour | Line marking is the finishing step, not counted in the eight |
| Base | Plain cement concrete, M20 grade, 70 mm granular sub-base | Required under acrylic |
| Cure before surfacing | 28 days | The fixed long pole in the programme |
| Sports marked | Basketball (key and mounted hoop) + a 44 × 20 ft racquet court | Two line sets: white, then a yellow overlay |
| Colours used | Royal Blue field, Grass Green surround, Terracotta Red central band | From the 7-colour acrylic range |
| Enclosure | Chain-link to IS 2721, 50 × 50 mm aperture, knuckled both edges, 3.0 m high | Medium-class GI posts, hot-dip galvanised, on M20 footings |
| Lighting | LED floodlights, specified by EN 12193 class | Both long sides, symmetric — never baselines |
| Kerbs and corners | Not applicable | Kerbs belong to PP interlocking tile courts, not acrylic |
| Surface life | 5–7 years, recoatable | Recoating point advised per site |
| Indicative rate | ₹155/sqft onwards, ex-GST (₹90 base + ₹65 onwards coating) | Enclosure and lighting priced separately |
What did the school actually end up with?
A walled patch of ground is now a fenced, floodlit, two-sport court on a seamless acrylic surface. It works through the school day and after last period. In the monsoon it is back in play a couple of hours after the rain stops. The final aerials show it with both line sets down and the hoop up.
The two closing photographs are the honest end of the sequence. One is the aerial with the yellow overlay added and the basketball hoop installed; the other is straight down, with both line sets legible at once. Read them together and the build is visible in order: mesh, slab, cure, coats, white lines, yellow lines, hoop, lights.
ChampCourts is headquartered in Hyderabad and builds pan-India, so a school anywhere in Telangana gets what this one got: an itemised estimate you can question line by line, court dimensions taken off the governing body's own drawing, and an enclosure and a lighting class written into the order so you can hold us to them at handover. The photographs above are of work we did. Call 9258775187 or email enquiry@champcourts.com and we will price a court like this for your own site.
FAQ
How long does a school sports court take to build?
The fixed item is the concrete: a plain cement concrete base must cure 28 days before any acrylic goes on it. Base work and enclosure setting come before that, and coating plus line marking after it. Schools usually plan the pour against their own term calendar so the loud phase and the 28-day cure fall where they disrupt least.
Can one court take two sports without the lines getting confusing?
Yes, and it is standard practice. The line sets are painted in different colours. On this court, white first and then a yellow overlay, so a player reads only the colour belonging to the game in play. It works particularly well for racquet sports, because a BWF badminton court and a USA Pickleball court share an identical 44 × 20 ft outer rectangle.
Is acrylic safe for young children playing every day?
It is a seamless bonded surface with no joints, edges or lifting panels to trip on, and the three cushion coats inside the 8-layer stack absorb impact rather than transmitting it into knees and ankles. It cleans with plain water and no chemicals. Rubber-soled court shoes only; the court should be allowed 1–2 hours to dry after rain.
Do we need kerbs on an acrylic court?
No. Kerbs and corner pieces belong to PP interlocking tile courts, where the perimeter has to be closed. On a tile court the maths is perimeter = 2 × (length + width), kerbs = perimeter × 4, plus 4 corner pieces. A 52 × 25 ft badminton court takes 616 kerbs and 4 corners. An acrylic system is coated onto the slab and needs none of it.
How bright do the floodlights need to be for after-school use?
Specify the EN 12193 class, not the wattage. Class III at 200 lux maintained with uniformity of at least 0.6 covers school training and recreational play; Class II at 300 lux suits club and regional standard. Ask for a measured lux grid at handover as the acceptance criterion, and insist the fixtures go on both long sides, never the baselines.
Do you build in Hyderabad, or is it subcontracted out?
ChampCourts is headquartered in Hyderabad. The registered office is at Lepakshi Colony, Nehrunagar, Hyderabad 500026, and we build pan-India from here. Hyderabad is the one city where site visits and supervision are genuinely local rather than travelled to. Call 9258775187 or email enquiry@champcourts.com for a free itemised estimate.
