1. Leave the cellphone at home, or at the very least, put it on vibrate. Under no circumstances should you talk on a cellphone when watching a match.
2. Do not applaud a double fault, even if the player for whom you are cheering is the recipient of the point. It's akin to applauding a missed putt at a golf tournament. And never heckle or boo a player.
3. Stay seated during play. There are designated times to enter and leave the seating area, usually when players switch ends of the court.
4. Don't ask a player for an autograph when he is en route to a match. Wait until the match is over, then ask politely.
5. Remain quiet while the point is being played. Seating at the Wake Forest Tennis Center is near the courts, and even the slightest noise from the stands can cause a player to become distracted.
Baseball fans stand for the seventh-inning stretch and do the wave.
Basketball fans wave their arms wildly in an effort to distract an opposing player at the foul line.
Soccer fans … well, let's not get into that.
The sport of tennis and the fans who support it are an altogether different breed.
For the most part, tennis fans are a gentle lot, although Davis Cup matches can get a bit raucous, especially in South America and parts of Europe.
An unofficial code of conduct exists for the tennis fan. Spectators are expected to stay silent while a point is being played. When the point has been completed, only then should fans applaud. Like golfers, tennis players become easily distracted by an unexpected sound or movement from the stands.
Booing or heckling a player is a major no-no. Fans have actually been removed from the premises of some tournaments for the kind of rude behavior that would be completely ignored at a pro football game. But that's much more likely to happen at the U.S. Open in New York than at Wimbledon or the French Open.
One of the more recent controversies in tennis to rear its ugly head is grunting. Yes, grunting. It's the sound that can be made by a player when he or she hits the ball. And the harder the player hits the ball, the louder it seems the grunt sounds.
But grunting is a much bigger problem in women's tennis than with their male counterparts, with Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams two of the major offenders. One of Sharapova's 2009 Wimbledon grunts was recorded at 105 decibels. Greensboro native John Isner has one of the bigger serves in tennis, but you won't hear him grunting at the Winston-Salem Open.
But it still begs the question, why do female players grunt so much?
Victoria Azarenka of Belarus tried to answer that question in an interview with The Daily Telegraph of London during Wimbledon this year.
"I've been doing it since I was 10 years old," she said. "I wasn't really that strong, and that was what helped me to accelerate more, to put more power to the ball. I cannot change it. That's what helps me play. I have to keep going with the thing that helps me play."
So there you have it.
Tennis is a sport of great tradition, although many of those traditions have been relaxed or completely done away with in recent years.
Male tennis players used to wear long pants, and women used to wear dresses. Today, it's shorts for men and skirts or shorts for women. Tennis used to be an all-white sport, in more ways than one. Today, only Wimbledon requires its participants to dress in predominantly white clothing. You won't see Andy Roddick or John Isner wearing all-white at the Winston-Salem Open.
Tennis balls also used to be white. But when television executives complained that their viewers could not follow the ball, even staid Wimbledon relented, and now optic yellow is used at all tennis tournaments.
Wimbledon also changed the way it refers to the players on the scoreboard. During Chris Evert's brief marriage to English tennis player John Lloyd, she was referred to as Mrs. J.M. Lloyd. Today, players of both sexes are referred to simply by their first and last names.