Fanatics Cheering Around the World Quiz

Answer: Spain

This phrase is Spanish for "who's winning?". When the Australian team is playing a Davis Cup tie in Madrid, Spanish is the language of choice.

Answer: Allez!

"Allez!" translates as "Go!". The other phrases are the French equivalent of "What time is it?", "What is that?" and "Why?". While these phrases all have their uses, they do not offer much support to the player on court.

Answer: Russian

Of course, Russian is the language spoken in the Russian capital city of Moscow, and "Poydyem, Avstraliya" is Russian for "Let's go, Australia". Russian usually uses Cyrillic characters that aren't available for this quiz, so this is a transliteration into Latin characters.

Answer: Vinciamo, Australia

"Vinciamo" is Italian, "Ni volas gajni" is Esperanto (not widely used on the professional tennis circuit, it must be admitted), and "Vamos" is a Spanish exhortation.

Answer: Afrikaans

South Africa has an amazing eleven official languages. In alphabetical order (using their names in English), they are Afrikaans (the language used in the question), English, Northern Sotho, Southern Ndebele, Southern Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu.

Many other African countries have even more languages than that in common use, but few have more than two or three official languages.

Answer: Belgrade, Serbia

That spelling of Aussie looks a lot more like Serbian than one of the languages spoken in the other countries. Indian Wells is in a country where the printed media are primarily in English, Montreal residents usually speak French or English, and Mexicans generally speak Spanish.

Answer: Rotterdam, Netherlands

The Dutch player Richard Krajiceck, who fans were urging to come on and win, won the Wimbledon men's singles title in 1996, the only Dutch player to do so. Along the way he dealt Pete Sampras his only Wimbledon defeat between 1993 and 2001. In Paris they would have been cheering in French; in Barcelona, in Spanish or Catalan; in Buenos Aires, Spanish would be the most likely language.

Answer: Sweden

"You can do it, team" in Swedish took a bit of rehearsing! Swedish tennis fans often paint their faces in the colors of their nation's flag, with a yellow stripe running from their foreheads down their noses to their chins. It looks even better when it starts to melt in the heat (more commonly seen among fans in Melbourne for the Australian Open than in their native land, which is significantly cooler).

The Fanatics, for their part, often dress in yellow and green, the traditional colors worn by Australian teams in international competitions.

Answer: Oosutoraria gambatte

All of these are translations of "Let's go Australia". "Dezagun go Australia" is Basque, spoken in the Basque regions of France and Spain. "Dewch i roi cynnig Awstralia" is Welsh, and "Eamus Australia" is Latin. None of these languages are widely spoken in Japan, where the Japanese "Oosutoraria gambatte" would be more appropriate.

Answer: Malay

The Chinese and Tamil slogans would be written in a script that can't be duplicated here, and the English (wait for it) is "Do it". English is the official language of business and government in Singapore, but it is estimated that about 20% of all Singaporeans are functionally illiterate in English. Chinese (of one form or another) is the native tongue of over half the population, while Malay is used as a ceremonial language to reflect the nation's history.

The national anthem is in Malay. Tamil is mostly spoken within the Indian community.