Politics and power in the global tennis circuit

Like most global sports, professional tennis is eager to claim that politics has no place on its playing field. On closer investigation, however, this ‘myth of autonomy’ soon cracks. In addition to adding tennis as a much-needed case to the study of sport and international affairs, this article develops the concept of ‘the circuit’ to approach phenomena that criss-cross traditional levels of analysis in international relations. In its first part, the article zooms in on the practice of writing celebratory messages onto the lenses of TV cameras as an example of the power relations that exist in and around professional tennis courts today. In its second part, it zooms out to map the themes and questions that have framed tennis as a political activity around the world and over time. The analysis identifies and characterizes the global tennis circuit as a site within which many of the most pressing political questions of our time are contained, focusing on the prestigious tournaments which make up the Grand Slam, and the elite athletes that participate in them.