American Tennis in Black and White

The news about Olympic tennis, which begins on Saturday, has, so far, mostly concerned those who won’t be playing. Maria Sharapova is out, barred from all tournament play for using the newly banned performance-enhancing drug meldonium. Roger Federer announced last week that he will not be playing tennis anywhere for the remainder of 2016, in order to rest a knee that was operated on earlier this year and that he may have reinjured at Wimbledon. Stan Wawrinka, the No. 4 men’s player in the world, is also out with an injury. A number of top players—among them, third-ranked Simona Halep, of Romania, and eighth-ranked Tomáš Berdych, of the Czech Republic—are skipping the Rio Games, expressing concerns about the Zika virus. The Canadian Milos Raonic, who has been playing terrific tennis—he reached the Wimbledon final and is No. 3 in the so-called Race to London rankings, which count only points earned this year—has also cited Zika as a reason he will not be in Rio. Raonic was candid enough to acknowledge that his focus is on playing A.T.P. tournaments, like last week’s Rogers Cup, in Toronto (where he was upset in the quarter-finals by Gaël Monfils), which are important tune-ups for the U.S. Open, and where a player can earn prize money and points toward his international ranking. The Olympics, which reinstated tennis as a full-medal event only in 1988, after a sixty-four-year absence, have, of course, never offered prize money. And this year medal winners will not be awarded ranking points, either, as they have in previous Games. Staying away is not just about mosquitoes.