Tennis can be played on four different types of surfaces, and each will affect how the ball bounces. If you are used to playing on a neutral hard court, switching to clay, grass or carpet can produce a very different game.
Clay
Clay is generally the slowest surface, which produces the highest bounce. Usually red or green, the court is topped by a thin layer of finely crushed aggregates such as stone or brick. This causes a lot of friction when coming into contact with the ball, which results in a higher bounce and slowing of forward momentum. This can be a problem if you're a player who relies on powerful serves to win matches. American great Pete Sampras, who in 1993 became the first person to score 1,000 points directly from serves in a single season, failed to win the French Open Grand Slam tournament on the most famous clay surface in tennis.
Hard Courts
Hard courts are common from high schools and public parks right through to the elite end of tennis competition, but their speed and affect on the ball can vary quite a lot. The crudest concrete surfaces can produce plenty of friction to produce a higher bounce. Most hard courts, however, are topped with acrylic paint. The amount of sand in the paint determines how much friction is produced. Generally, hard courts are considered a leveler for all players, as they are usually quicker than clay but slower than grass. The US Open and Australian Open Grand Slams are both played on hard courts.
Grass
Grass courts are fairly uncommon because they take a lot of maintenance and wear out quickly with heavy use. The surface is most famously used at Wimbledon, which is the fastest of the four major Grand Slams. The speed and bounce is largely determined by how dry and how tightlypacked the soil is. At Wimbledon, the grass is cut at 8 mm and allows the ball to slide with little friction, meaning a low bounce. To illustrate the differences, former British player Andrew Castle told the BBC, "On clay the ball is up round your ears but on grass the ball is waist high or lower."
Carpet
Carpet courts come in rolls of textile or polymeric material that are usually used indoors as temporary surfaces. The character of the surface varies quite a lot depending on the material and its hardness. The International Tennis Federation has five classifications for speed from slow through to fast, and different carpet surfaces can be found in each category. For example, the Taraflex surface can play as fast as grass, whereas the Trucourt is more like playing on the slowest clay court and will present a high bounce.
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