Republicans love country club sports. Presidents Eisenhower and Ford were hooked on golf. Arnold Schwarzenegger met his wife Maria Shriver through tennis, has a court in his L.A. backyard and famously played at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport.

The first President Bush is both a huge fan of golf and tennis and is a “FOCE” (friend of Chris Evert). Bush is a stalwart each year at Chrissie’s celebrated Boca Raton charity event, while on-court, according to one of his teachers, Ben Press “has a good finished game with a big serve that is difficult to pin down. And, at 6-foot-3, he has a pretty good serve and volley, and moves quite well for a big man. But what impressed me the most was that he was very competitive.”

Bush’s son Jeb, the ex-Florida governor, helped the USTA with tennis initiatives and played for the University of Texas until Wimbledon finalist-to-be Kevin Curren showed up in Austin and took his slot.

Read more … Blake Endorese Obama

Then there’s Rudy Giuliani, who was effusive about the USTA naming its U.S. Open Stadium after Arthur Ashe. Giuliani beamed, “Now the main court will forever be named for a great hero. I commend the USTA for one of the best decisions made by anyone in sports… They are making the stadium a place where people will have to be confronted with the reality of Arthur Ashe’s life and being confronted with the reality of Arthur Ashe’s life will make us a better people.”

On the other hand, some claimed that Rudy viewed tennis as the bailiwick of his heated rival, former Mayor David Dinkins, a longtime tennis enthusiast. Rudy never visited the U.S. Open, plus he was highly critical of the USTA’s contracts with New York City and the fly-over rights of planes during the Open.

But what of John McCain’s connection to tennis? We e-mailed his media people, but didn’t get a response. We contacted a top politician in Arizona who mused, “John’s connection to tennis? Gee, that’s never come up before.”

So we wracked our brains. When McCain’s supporters chanted “MAC IS BACK!” we knew they were not talking about a McEnroe comeback. So as for the senator’s link to tennis — we’re still looking.

Democrats are also into tennis. President Carter and Ted Kennedy are players and fans, and the Clintons’ connections to the game are wide-ranging. Chelsea went to prep school with ATPer Paul Goldstein and Stanford’s tennis coach teased his team, claiming that the president’s daughter, then an incoming freshman, was going to be the team’s manager.

President Clinton himself enjoyed going to many a Grand Slam tournament. There was Bill in Wimbledon’s Royal Box, or meeting and greeting in a power suite at the U.S. Open, or arriving late for a French Open match where he seemed to distract Agassi and lead to Las Vegan’s defeat. As for Hillary, she confided to Inside Tennis in ‘02, “I played tennis badly. I used to bounce the ball a little bit on my racket and I got a few little trophies, but I knew they wouldn’t lead to anything great. The last tournament I won,” she reported, “was a mixed doubles tournament in Fayetteville, Tenn. But on the trophy the figure of the man was huge, while the figure of the woman was very small. I kept that trophy around as a reminder. But that was 25 years ago. Hopefully, things have changed.”