Join a tennis tour, see the world? It seems safe to say that not even the Formula One circuit offers as many compelling and exotic venues in a single calendar year as does world tennis.
This came to mind after Vera Zvonareva won a WTA title on Sunday in Baku, Azerbaijan, a city not usually high on the itinerary of the globetrotting tourist.
Both tours offer a kaleidoscopic range of stops.
Let's divide them into three categories: the great cities, the tourist destinations, the exotic.
In the first group, both the men and women can count on annual stops in Paris, New York, London, Rome, Madrid, Beijing, Tokyo, and Moscow.
In the "tourist destination" category, the men have Monte Carlo, Acapulco, Kitzbuhel, Delray Beach and Gstaad. The women answer with Bad Gastein, Kuala Lumpur, Marbella, Carlsbad, Quebec City and Bali.
Both men and women can count on time in Miami, Indian Wells and Dubai.
In the exotic group, the men boast Chennai, Casablanca, and Santiago. The women beat that with Fez, Bogota, Pattaya City, Tashkent, Palermo, Istanbul and the aforementioned Baku.
The hidden peril on either tour is the potential for a deep sense of dislocation and chronic jet lag. "If this is July, I'm in … Bastad?"
The less glamorous reality: most players will concede that they travel from airport to hotel to stadium and back, whether the tournament is in Seoul or Strasbourg.
poberjuerge@thenational.ae
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