PRAGUE — A German of Chilean descent, an American with Russian parentage, a Pole and a Dutchman were arguing in English on a red clay tennis court on the outskirts of Prague.
As much as that may sound like the setup to a joke, it was just a moment in time on the International Tennis Federation’s Futures Tour, the lowest level of professional men’s tennis where thousands toil in relative obscurity, with little hope of ever joining the sport’s elite.
The four men had disputed several previous calls in the contentious doubles match, and the German player, Laslo Urrutia Fuentes, fumed when Sander Groen, his Dutch opponent, fired an overhead slam directly at him as he stood defenseless at the net.