Tennis in Belgium
It grew out of the French speaking population lobbing grenades at the German speaking population. Pretty soon they started using rackets to return the grenades to the lobbers and pretty soon you have tennis! A real killer sport!
It bombed in Arab countries, though, since they didn't lob grenades; they taped them to their own chests. And that's why there are no tennis greats from Saudi Arabia or other Arab-speaking countries. Potential tennis players are self-immolated and, thusly, splattered across the landscape.