Wimbledon is the snobbiest of Grand Slams. Even former World No. 1s with close to $15 million in prize money can’t afford the pasta served in the clubhouse of the All England Club. Some don’t even like the much-admired manicured grass courts of Wimbledon. “Grass is for cows,” they say. The club authorities don't do themselves any favours. They often take the all-white rule too far.
These drawbacks notwithstanding, it is without a doubt the finest of the Grand Slams. Once you win here, you arrive on the international tennis scene. Just ask Rafael Nadal in 2008. Or Novak Djokovic every time he chows down on the grass after a victory in the finals.
Of course, munching hard courts and clay dirt might be too much to ask even of a player of his calibre. The recently disgraced Maria Sharapova might have not defeated her arch rival Serena Williams in over a decade, but she won where it mattered the most, in the finals of Wimbledon in 2004.
The year’s third Grand Slam, for better or worse, is also the the last bastion of the old world of tennis. A place that epitomises that old phrase – “tennis is a prince of all games, and a game for all princes”. Being at Wimbledon is like being able to go to party you normally would not be invited to. And for those not interested by the parade of celebrities from royalty to sports stars like Sachin Tendulkar and Hollywood actors, the tennis is exquisite too.
The tournament began on Monday, and though the early rounds feature great tennis from little-known players, they are low on the drama. To tide over the wait to the later rounds, where some pressing questions might be answered, “Will Novak Djokovic continue his bid for a calendar year Grand Slam?” or “Can Roger Federer win yet another major?” or “Is Wimbledon 2016 the place the millennials of the ATP tour finally hit the big time?” or “Can Serena Williams regain her form and get back on the Grand Slam record-breaking track?”, here are five books to add to your enjoyment of two glorious weeks of tennis.
Open, Andre Agassi
There have been numerous tennis autobiographies. Almost every major player in history has one. Pete Sampras has one. Boris Becker has one. Jimmy Connors has one. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a top player without one.
Often, memoirs and autobiographies from sportsmen are self-serving enterprises, used by players as a way to brand themselves after leaving the sport. Mostly, they fail to do what a good memoir is supposed to do, which is to provide information about things readers might not have access to and honestly tell a story from all angles.
A few have come close, but none more so than Andre Agassi’s 2009 bestseller. The best thing about it? It transcends the game. While the most exciting parts are undoubtedly about the tennis and his retelling of some of the classic matches in his career, at its heart the book is a coming-of-age tale.
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer JR Moehringer (whose memoir The Tender Bar was what prompted Agassi to work with him in the first place), who co-wrote the memoir from hours of taped interviews with Agassi, brings a surprising level of pathos and melancholy to the tennis player’s tale, starting off with an overbearing father who constructed a machine in the family backyard and forced the future World No. 1 to practise for hours.
Agassi begins the book by saying, “I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have,” but ends up writing a love letter to the sport.
Venus Envy: A Sensational Season Inside The Tennis Tour, L Jon Wertheim
If you think that social media has actually made sport stars more accessible to fans than before you are mistaken. It has done the exact opposite. It has made it much easier for them to carefully create and construct their identities. That’s why, in a sense, there hasn’t been a good book about the tennis circuit in years.
In the 1980s and 1990s there was a series of books that examined both the men’s and women’s tours in great detail. There was Peter Bodo’s fascinating Courts of Babylon, although much of the information is now out of date. Also, Michael Mewshaw’s Short Circuits: Six Months on the Men’s Professional Tennis Tour, which has a great section on Indian tennis player Vijay Amritraj, amongst other things, although at many points in the book Mewshaw seems to be reaching too hard for stories.
The best of the lot is Venus Envy by L Jon Wertheim, which brilliantly captures the transformation of tennis into a mass market corporate enterprise (the title is what all the players on tour are feeling ever since Venus Williams got the biggest endorsement deal) from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. And for those who love a little behind-the-scenes gossip (which fan doesn’t?) the book has it in spades.
Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal and the Greatest Match Ever Played, L Jon Wertheim
Much has been written and said about Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s classic bout in the final of the 2008 edition of Wimbledon. Does it or does it not eclipse the John McEnroe-Bjorn Borg final from 1981? In my opinion, yes. Although McEnroe-Borg’s “fire and ice” rivalry was the better and more evenly-contested one, Federer Vs Nadal was the better match.
Wertheim is a great writer, and his coverage of the match does a thorough job of providing minute details as well as background information on both players. More than anything, it's another opportunity to relive an encounter that is etched in the memories of most tennis fans.
An interesting companion piece is Rafael Nadal’s surprisingly honest mid-career autobiography-cum-reportage Rafa: My Story where he tells his version of the match and also breaks down how he beat the Swiss Maestro" “If I go up to the net, I hit to his backhand. Not to his drive, his strongest shot. Losing your concentration means going to the net and hitting the ball to his forehand, or omitting in a rush of blood to serve to his backhand – always to his backhand – or going for a winner when it’s not time,” Federer must not have been too pleased by this revelation.
String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis, David Foster Wallace
Writer David Foster Wallace only met Roger Federer for twenty minutes, but was able to produce one of the most famous pieces of tennis writing of the last few years. In Federer as Religious Experience, he even coined – and, more important, perfectly defined – the now much-used phrase “Federer Moments”. But that isn’t even his best writing on the subject.
Years earlier, Wallace wrote a profile of journeyman tennis player Michael Joyce, in which he perfectly broke down what it was to be in the top 100 but still not be considered a success, or what it did to a human being when much of their life was spent focussing on a mundane task like hitting a ball for 10 hours a day. There are also multiple interesting asides and footnotes about various top tennis players like Pete Sampras, and life on the ATP tour.
In another essay, Wallace examines his own junior tennis career and why he failed, why he was never able to get to the top. His affection for the game doesn’t make him short-sighted, though. A thread of criticism runs through all his pieces, none of them stronger than his takedown of former tennis player and childhood idol Tracy Austin’s “breathtakingly insipid” autobiography, where he also questions the entire genre of the celebrity memoir.
Since the book is a compilation of previously published pieces, all of them can be found on the internet. Legally, here and here. A simple search will take you to the rest.
A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played, Marshall Jon Fisher
What truly makes the best match of all time? Certainly, the tennis has to be great and both players need to be playing at the highest level. But more than anything, it's the context. That's why no match, however good, since Federer-Nadal's 2008 humdinger has come close to the title. There was simply too much at stake in that tie. But as far as this Davis Cup final is concerned, not enough.
American Don Budge and German Gottfried von Cramm faced off on the grass courts of Wimbledon in 1937. Cramm was under pressure for his refusal to join the Nazi party, which was also conducting investigations into his homosexuality, a criminal offence in Nazi Germany. A victory would mean regaining favour with the Nationalist Socialist Party.
The book itself is a case of the story being much better than the writing. Too many asides and too many history lessons interrupt the narration far too often. But as a snapshot of tennis in times of war, there is nothing like it.
Here's a description of the day.
Yet on this peaceful English summer day, the Swastika is flying high over Centre Court, along with the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. Nazi officials are sipping tea with the Queen in the Royal Box. And from the very first point of the match, there has been no question of where the crowd's sympathy lies: the English are rooting for Hitler's man.
— 'A Terrible Splendour', Marshall Jon Fisher
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