Why isn't tennis more diverse?

Don't be snookered by the Williams sisters and James Blake. Don't think that soon you're going to see a serious onslaught of racial diversity in pro tennis.

One of my recent columns focused on how professional tennis, now more than ever, is a game possessing a stunning array of players from all over the world. The tennis world is flat, I argued. Nowhere is this truer than here at what is arguably America's most international major sporting event.

Here's a little mea culpa. I must back up, by a small step, from the premise of that column. Among a large cast, tennis is a game stuffed with Frenchmen, Spaniards, Russians, Brazilians and yes, although in dwindling numbers, Americans. But you are simply not going to find many players who, in their respective countries, are racial minorities. And while the number is broadening somewhat, you are also not going to find many players with brown skin.

Let me put it to you like this, if the Open were a political convention, it would be the one held this week in Minneapolis with the old dude and the beauty queen. You know how conventions like that put every last black delegate in the front row -- all 12 of them -- masking reality? What great theater.

Same thing here. The push this year by a few top players masks the deeper reality. Saturday, Venus and Serena Williams played their televised matches on the show court. While they played, I walked the grounds, scanning the 18 outside courts where practices and matches were being held. On those courts the only non-white player was a teenaged mixed-doubles player named Sloane Stephens.

Sure, at the Open there's the Williams sisters and Blake. There's also Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and the elastic Gael Monfils, future stars who continue to charge through the draw. That's five top players with African heritage. But there are a combined total of 251 others in the singles draws.

Given the deeply mixed backgrounds of some of the players here, this is tough to quantify, but walking the grounds and scanning the draw you come to a simple conclusion: only a thin slice of those 251 players are non-white.

It's not just a lack of African-Americans.

Where are the Mexican-Americans?

Where are the Asians? Maybe Kei Nishikori, the young Japanese player who pushed forward with an upset Saturday, will blaze a trail.