Last week’s talk about the tennis team at Cornell was very abnormal for the Rose Cafe series. Whereas most events cover the person’s work in research or their academic interests, this talk covered Cornell’s tennis team, recruitment, and the organisation of college tennis. I thought it was very interesting to hear the differences in outlook of athletic careers in the United States versus the rest of the world. Silviu Tanasoiu mentioned that the American system of collegiate athletics is the most developed in the world, giving athletes an opportunity at higher education that is not seen in other countries. I can imagine it would be difficult to convince international players to attend a university for four years while delaying their opportunities for professional tennis; however, I am sure this task is not as difficult when the education you are promising is from an Ivy League school. According to the head coach, it seems that this is the case, as the team seems to have no shortage of international students. As an extension of the difficulties of recruiting international athletes, the process of finding worthy tennis players in other countries must be incredibly difficult (and Silviu Tanasoiu mentions that they look almost every day for updates on athletes from around the world). It seems so incredible that, with all of the tennis players in the world, the different teams can manage to pick such a small group of athletes to develop the “right” team. Overall, it was very interesting to hear this inside perspective of something that I would have never thought about otherwise.