How Balkan Players Have Risen To A Place Of Tennis Dominance

— -- PARIS -- Damir Dzumhur was born in May 1992 in Sarajevo, not far from the ice arena that showcased the world's greatest athletes in the 1984 Olympics. A month before Dzumhur's birth, the city had fallen under what would become the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare; days after his birth, the arena was destroyed. The basement was used as a morgue, and the wood benches were turned into coffins.

When the arena was rebuilt after the Bosnian war, it was there that Dzumhur trained.

He became the first man representing Bosnia and Herzegovina to play in the third round of the French Open this fortnight at Roland Garros. But he was just one in an enormous presence of players from the Balkans.