Postcard: International flavor imbues tennis

Tennis — unlike football, baseball or any other American pastime — has become a truly international sport. When one examines the draw for any Grand Slam tournament, abbreviations for obscure countries like Uzbekistan, Croatia, Chinese Taipei and Cyprus often litter the pages, next to the names of various players. The sports that generate the most fanfare in the United States, however, are largely Americentric.

Despite Peyton Manning’s best efforts, football is not played widely enough to garner status as an Olympic sport, and Japan’s Nippon League is the only baseball league in the world that roughly compares to Major League Baseball. If we use gross revenue or transfers from the Nippon League to the Major League as a metric, though, Major League baseball and Nippon League baseball are hardly comparable.

I tasted the international flavor of tennis this summer when I went to the two European Grand Slam tournaments: Roland Garros, also known as the French Open, in June and Wimbledon in early July.

Roland Garros is particularly special among the four Grand Slams because it is the only major tournament played on red clay. Many fans and experts consider Roland Garros the most demanding major to win because the ball kicks up higher and points tend to be longer, more grueling affairs there. Added to the physicality of play is the especially intimate setting. The French Open grounds are by far the smallest of the four Grand Slam tournaments, and the stadium court, Court Philippe Chatrier, holds a mere 15,000 spectators.

This summer there was an anxious awareness pervading the grounds that the French Open may be outgrowing its quaint home at Roland Garros. Overcrowded conditions meant long bathroom lines and a substantial wait to be seated for lunch at the garden cafe.

The event seemed trapped in indecision: It wanted to know whether to preserve the boutique, intimate setting at Roland Garros or to embrace the mounting popularity and growing democratization of a once-exclusive sport. This choice will be hard for the French, who know better than anyone else that a large part of Roland Garros appeal is its chic location in the 16th arrondissement, where the small stadiums tastefully blend in among the flower-lined sidewalks and everyday rhythm of lazy Parisian life.

Wimbledon would face a similar space concern were it not for the pervasive sense of tradition at the All England that not only pronounces even the suggestion of relocation unholy but also justifies the small, exclusive venue.

Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, and as a result it is often considered the most prestigious. Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam still played on grass — the game’s original surface — and it is the only tournament that still enforces the customary all-white dress code.

Though I occasionally entertain unrealistic thoughts about what it might be like to be a professional athlete, I do not envy Andy Murray — the current favorite at Wimbledon. In a sport increasingly defined by both its traditional roots in England and an emergence of talent and popularity in outposts like Eastern Europe, shouldering the burden of bringing home a Wimbledon Championship to the U.K. (technically not England, because Murray is a Scot) is a lot of pressure.

England was once a hotbed for tennis greats, but it hasn’t had a male Wimbledon champion since Fred Perry in 1936. One might expect that recently retired Brit Tim Henman taught his fellow Brits a thing or two about readjusting their expectations. After all, even the Queen is in the business of expectation management as the U.K. becomes accustomed to greater irrelevancy after a half-century of de-imperializing and declining in global importance.

But fundamentally, the ever-hopeful Brits, who are now cheering from their perch on “Murray Mound” rather than “Henman Hill,” have got it right. In a sport where two Serbians have recently risen to No. 1, a small island nation like the U.K. is just as capable of once again producing tennis’s next great champion.

Even as the nexus of the sport moves further and further away from Centre Court at Wimbledon, there is no reason why it cannot also find its way back home. And that is precisely what makes tennis so exciting as an international sport.