Niland, Conor. The Racket: On Tour with Tennis's Golden Generation -- and the Other 99%. Dublin, Ireland: Sandycove (Penguin). 2025. Print.
Behind every successful tennis player is a parent who refused to allow them to quit. I was ten when I first told my folks that I wanted to give it all up. They didn't yield then, and they never did. Tennis was our family business, and the stakes were made clear to me when I was young.
Description:
I used to play a lot of tennis, from age eight through college and later as a teaching professional internationally. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I had the game, physicality, or mentality to compete on any professional level. Without formal lessons, playing rag-tag survival tennis with "interesting" shots (my Turn-Around-Jump-Reverse-Spin serve comes to mind), I knew early on there were way too many levels above me to delude myself into a playing career. Teaching was a different story, one I could excel at and really loved.
For Conor Niland, an Irish tennis player in the early 1980s through the late 1990s, the professional dream was his reality. At least it was for his parents and two older siblings who trainied and joined the professional circuit. Niland's recent autobiography, The Racket: On Tour with Tennis's Golden Generation -- and the Other 99%, relates his ambitious climbs from playing on his backyard court under the stern instruction of his parents, through college in the United States, and then into the Futures (now ITF World Tennis Tour - for players ranked 500 or lower in the world) His first goal was to break away from the Futures up into the Challenger Tour (for players ranked 100-500) and ideally into the elite ATP Tour of the top players ranked 1-100. I grew to like the atmosphere around the house on the morning of a final, my senses were always heightened. From the moment you woke up, every sound appeared that little bit sharper: the spoon hitting the cereal bowl, the bread popping out of the toaster. Every one was dressed more smartly, and spoke in a quieter, softer tone.
Junior training had its ups and down for Niland. At twelve, he beat an unknown Roger Federer in straight sets. Training at the Nick Bollettieri IMG Academy for two weeks, he noted that the facility is "a tennis zoo: kids are kept caged in courts all day and fed tennis balls," although the programs developed Number One players including Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, Jim Courier, and Maria Sharapova.
Niland explains that each win in any tourney gives him ATP points, helping improve his ranking and placement in upcoming tournaments. A high enough ranking, always a goal, allows him to enter the next prestigious level of tournaments with more luxuries, prize money and ATP points available.
His climb from the backyard upward, recounted on a tournament by tournament basis, reveals the trials and tribulations of a young player on his way up (hopefully), the goals he achieves along the way as well as the blown opportunities that might have helped him. His lifestyle and behavior are also laid out as he struggles with decisions faced both on-court and off. He recalls practice
hitting or matches with great players like Andy Murray, the Williams
sisters, Andy Roddick and many others lost in obscurity. Along the way, Niland provides astute, fascinating comments about each player.
It's not exactly right to say that the very top guys like Djokovic hit the ball much harder....But they hit it deeper, right to the baseline, and they do it relentlessly. It doesn't look like a big difference on TV, but that extra foot and a half of depth, over and over, is a killer. This didn't so much put me under pressure as put me under siege.
Traveling 35 weeks a year, he has no time for social relationships with women or player s concentrating on their own struggles to survive. Sometimes he played nine tournaments in ten weeks, flying all over the world from Doha to Chennai to Montreal to Switzerland to Banja Luka and on and on and on.
Expenses are always in his mind. Can he afford to pay a coach who could free him from the tenious requirements of finding hitting partners, giving him professionals training and advice, and providing companionship as Niland travels weekly from country to country? How can he avoid the pressure of competition, knowing that a win would secure necessary funds and ATP points (not to mention necessities like travel expenses, equipment, and food), while a loss would lower his ranking? Tennis Ireland, the country's federation, was of little help financially and with coaching.
Along the way he also discusses hi encounters with physiotherapists, gambling on matches, banned substances, sideline coaching, tennis parents, Quallifying tourneys, wildcard entrances to the main draw, and even food poisoning at an inoportune moment.
There were matches in my career in which it felt as though what was at stake was not merely qualification, but my identity too....How long was I going to give it? I was going to give it years if it meant gettinbg a few great hours in return.
I was totally involved with Conor Niland's life, his ambitions, his frustrations, and his day to day/tournament to tournament lifestyle. When he succeeded, I felt elation. When he stumbled (choked?), I honestly felt bad for him, a player I previously had never heard of.
Highly recommended for an insider's look into the everyday adder to tennis success and the impending slide back down that also awaits every player at every level.
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Happy reading.
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