The Racket

Niland, Conor. The Racket: On Tour with Tennis's Golden Generation -- and the Other 99%. Dublin, Ireland: Sandycove (Penguin). 2025. Print.

First Sentences:

 

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. But 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 pursuing a playing career. But teaching tennis was for me 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 subsequently his two older siblings who trained 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 Circuit (now ITF World Tennis Tour) for players ranked 500 or lower in the world. 

 

His first goal was to break away from the lowly 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. Niland explains that each win in any tourney gave him ATP points, helping improve his ranking and placement in upcoming tournaments. A high enough ranking allowed him to enter the next prestigious level of tournaments with more luxuries, prize money and ATP points available.

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. Everyone 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. Later, when 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 Academy did develop players including Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, Jim Courier, and Maria Sharapova.

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 sessions or matches with great players like Andy Murray, the Williams sisters, Andy Roddick and many others now lost in tennis 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 had 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 also always in his mind. Can he afford  to pay a coach who could free him from the tedious requirements of finding hitting partners, give him professionals training and advice, and provide companionship as Niland travels weekly from country to country? How can he deal with 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? 

Along the way he also discusses his encounters with physiotherapists, gambling on matches, banned substances, sideline coaching, tennis parents, qualifying tourneys, wildcard entrances to the main draw, and even food poisoning at an inopportune moment.

 

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.

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 getting a few great hours in return.

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.

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

McPhee, John. Levels of the Game.   

Point by point analysis of the 1978 US Open tennis match between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. McPhee takes readers inside the players' minds as they devise strategies, relish successes, and overcome missed opportunities. Provides the background and personalities which influence each player's shot selection, strategy, and mental game.

 

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 435 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

  

Special Post - Best Sports Instruction

Now that summer is here, it's time to think about playing outdoors. And playing a sport well is the best fun. But if you really wanted to learn how to be efficient, effective, and joyful at tennis, golf, baseball, and/or swimming, which books would you choose to read? 

Below are my favorite instruction books for these sports. I have used them all for years and each has changed how I play each game. Also, they have given me a better understanding of the principles of efficient use of my physical and mental energy toward a goal of playing well and simply having fun. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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Tennis For Life - Peter Burwash

First Sentences 

If you're like almost every other tennis player, you've reached a plateau on which you're stuck.

No matter how hard you practice, no matter how many lessons you take, you're stuck on that level. 

Description:

Peter Burwash, a former tennis professional from Canada, observed the common traits followed by successful pros and then incorporated them into lessons for us ordinary players. He discards the usual advice such as "Watch the ball" and "Racquet back," and instead stresses techniques that actually influence the ball. Burwash emphasizes the importance of the contact point between racquet and ball (backswing and follow-through do not actually direct the ball since the ball is not on the strings during each of these!); snapping the wrist in serving; "catching" volleys like a baseball player; and responding to emergency situations when perfect strokes are not possible. 

He breaks the game down into techniques easily understood, remembered, and applied. These techniques work for players of all levels. Believe me, I've seen it happen countless times when I taught beginning and nationally-ranked players using these same concepts. Definitely a game-changer of a book.

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Total Immersion: The Revolutionary Way to Swim Better, Faster, and Easier - Terry Laughlin

First Sentences  

It's no mystery why people why people have trouble swimming as fast or as far or as smoothly as they'd like: Most of them are doing it backwards.

"Don't worry if you form's not perfect," coaches and instructors have always assured us. "Just get those laps in. Eventually you'll be fit enough to develop a smoother, stronger stroke." 

It really works the other way around, but that's not how it's been taught.

          

Description:

Author Terry Laughlin was a competitive swimmer all his life including college, but gave it up due to the boredom of endless laps and lack of personal progress in speed and efficiency. Entering Masters competitions renewed his interest in pursuing a revolutionary method of swimming and training: using streamlining and gliding techniques rather than energy-inefficient power strokes. Easy to comprehend and easy to practice, these step-by-step progressions practiced in short bursts of one lap provide fun, highly obtainable results. Really changed my stroke and enjoyment as now I can swim over a mile smoothly without becoming winded.

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Five Simple Steps to Perfect Golf - Count Yogi

First Sentences  

It has always been said that good golf starts with a good grip. That is true.

        

Description:

Count Yogi was a highly successful golfer who hustled for money and gave demonstrations on California courses using a simplified approach to mastering the few essentials of the sports: grip, balance, approaching the ball, total swing, and putting.

Instead of breaking down the swing into minute elements no one can remember or implement, he simply focuses on stroke smoothness and a few minor tips (hitting through the ball). Count Yogi also adds plenty of snarky comments about current pros and their detailed books which offer advice the pros/author don't use on the course ... because they all are actually using Count Yogi's techniques, of course. A hard book to find, but worth the effort. Lots of fun to read and plenty of great tips.

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The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance - Tim Galloway

First Sentences  

The problems which most perplex tennis players are not those dealing with the proper way to swing a racket.... 

The most common complaint of sportsmen ringing down the corridors of the ages is, "It's not that I don't know what to do, it's that I don't do what I know."

   

Description:

Self One and Self Two are constantly battling inside the head of every tennis player. Self One, the critical one, says "Why did you do that, you moron," while Self Two, quietly envisions the success of the shot. Author Galloway argues that silencing Self One and focusing on Self Two via visualization of quality shots and results will be more successful than endless drills and techniques. His offers an easy-to-comprehend philosophy, relying on imaging and quietness of the mind to achieve goals. Fascinating, and it actually produces great results both in shots and one's enjoyment of the game.

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The Science of Hitting - Ted Williams

First Sentences  

Hitting a baseball -- I've said it a thousand times before -- is the single most difficult thing to do in sport.

Description:

Williams, the last baseball hitter to end a season with a .400 average, shares the science and practice behind successfully hitting the ball. He has broken this seemingly simple action into details that are easily understood, but require practice, discipline, and then even more practice to achieve the goals. Very solid writing and theories behind this difficult art.

String Theory

Wallace, David Foster. String Theory. New York: Library of America. 2016. Print.

First Sentences:

When I left my boxed township of Illinois farmland to attend my dad's alma mater in the lurid jutting Berkshires of western Massachusetts, I all of a sudden developed a jones for mathematics. 

Description:

I didn't know that David Foster Wallace, the brilliant, witty, troubled writer of essays (Consider the Lobster) and complex novels (Infinite Jest) was once a successful tennis player in his teen years. His limited talent curtailed that career but his interest in the sport lives today in his insightful essays on modern tennis and its players. These writings are gathered together in String Theory. Together, they offer Wallace's insightful, often snarky look at the sport, its history, and the players who make it, in Wallace's opinion, the most difficult and beautiful of all sport competition, particularly when watched in person.

TV tennis is to live tennis pretty much as video porn is to the felt reality of human love.

Wallace opening essay is on his own personal history with tennis, his rise to fame in his junior years (due to his love of playing in terrible conditions), and his ultimate realization that his skills would never carry him on to a professional career. His writing displays complete understanding of the game as an insider to junior level tennis in Midwest America.

"How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart" documents Wallace's bitter disappointment with the lackluster autobiography of Tracy Austin, one of the players he admires. He scathingly criticizes her ghost-written book (Beyond Center Court) for its bland writing and unforgivable lack of personal insights from Austin, such as her feelings about appearing on the cover of World Tennis at age four, on becoming the youngest woman to win a professional tournament at fourteen, the reasons behind her inner drive, and her thoughts about the unlucky events that ended her career while she was only in her early twenties. 

There's a cruel paradox involved. It may well be that we spectators, who are not divinely gifted as athletes, are the only ones able truly to see, articulate, and animate the experience of the give we are denied.And that those who receive and act out the gift of athletic genius must, perforce, be blind and dumb about it--and not because blindness and dumbness are the price of the gift, but because they are its essence.

So it is left to tennis outsider Wallace to write such an in-depth biographical essay and he chooses Michael Joyce as his subject. Joyce, the 79th best player in the world, is competing in the qualifying rounds of the Canadian Open. As a lower-ranked player, winning three matches in this "Qualies" tourney allows Joyce entrance into the major tournament with the opportunity to improve his ranking, gain the attention of sponsors, and of course win some bigger money. Wallace follows Joyce throughout this important tourney and records the player's thoughts about the present, future, and opponents. Wallace's penetrating writing and observation skills reveal the hopes and realities for this one player in his everyday struggles.

If you've played tennis a least a little, you probably think you have some idea of how hard a game it is to play really well. I submit to you that you really have no idea at all. I know I didn't. [Michael Joyce], at a full run, can hit a fast-moving tennis ball into a one-foot square area 78 feet away over a yard-high net, hard. He can do this something over 90% of the time. And this is the world's 79th-best player, one who has to play the Montreal Qualies.

Then comes "Federer Both Flesh and Not," Wallace's (and anyone else's) definitive essay on the greatest player of our generation, Roger Federer. For Wallace, everyone who has watched this man play has experienced a "Federer Moment" when Federer makes an impossible shot that changes the course of the rally/game/match. This is done so effortlessly that even though you have seen it you cannot believe what just happened:

.... jaws drop and eyes protrude and sounds are made that bring spouses in from other rooms to see if you're  OK ....The metaphysical explanation is that Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws.

String Theory is full of equal parts brilliant writing and passion for players, matches, and strategies. There also is plenty of commentary on related tennis issues from equipment and clothing, to strategy, player rituals, concession prices, ticket-takers, stadium design, and commentators. Even players' girlfriends get a mention:

Players [at the Qualies] ... have girlfriends in tow, sloppily beautiful European girls with sandals and patched jeans and leather backpacks, girlfriends who set up cloth lawn chairs and sun themselves next to their players' practice courts...Most have something indefinable about them that suggest extremely wealthy parents whom the girls are trying to piss off by hooking up with an obscure professional tennis player.

Who can resist this type of insightful, all-encompassing writing about all aspects of tennis? Certainly not me. I loved these essays and highly recommend them to anyone who loves the tennis, great writing, and highly intelligent (and often extremely funny) comments.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

McPhee, John. Levels of the Game

Detailed analysis of a 1968 U.S. Open tennis match at Forest Hills between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner, revealing their thoughts, ambitions, history, and personalities in this, the best tennis writing ever. 

Handful of Summers

Forbes, Gordon. Handful of Summers. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1978. Print

First Sentences:

Staircase number one at the All England Club leads you into a section of the stadium just above the members enclosure.

Climb the stairs on finals days and there, suddenly, in the sun, the soft old centre court, ling waiting, all green; waiting; for two o'clock. It is venerable, that court, and it lives.

Description:

Remember when sports were played for the love of the game, the comradery, the adventure of travel, and just the freedom to live the life of the young and talented? Was there ever such a time? The answer is a joyous "Yes" from Gordon Forbes, author of Handful of Summers where he chronicles his experiences and the free-spirited men and women playing the international amateur tennis circuit during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Forbes, an 18-year-old South African, grew up hitting tennis balls as a punishment for whatever shenanigans he and his brother and sisters got into on their isolated ranch (stealing eagle eggs, blowing up their homemade cannon, etc.). Gradually, he became good enough to be sponsored to play in international tournaments. 

He kept a diary (which became the basis for this book) throughout those early trips to English and other international tournaments which opened his eyes to the world, fellow competitors ("colorful lunatics"), and of course, women. Even the tournaments themselves offered unique experiences.

They were so simple, those little English tournaments, so utterly artless. Home-made, if you like. They were funny things ... but they were open-hearted, and they allowed ordinary people to play them. Everything was absolutely fair and square -- and the "conditions" that the players were offered, though infinitesimal, were conditions, nonetheless.

Players received a return train fare from London, cold lunches each day, accommodations with a local family, and 50 shillings for "expenses." Tournament winners received prize vouchers of 5 pounds which players could spend only on "white apparel." 

But this book does not linger on the game itself. Rather, the tournaments and matches serve as a backdrop to best feature the idiosyncrasies of the players, their conversations, and their antics when loosened on the world at a young age. For example:

• Torben Ulrich, the Danish philosopher player who played jazz clarinet, but when Forbes when to see him play, Ulrich just stood silently at the mike in front of his band because "I could not think of a single note to play";

• Don Candy who once argued a call with an empty official's chair;

• Roy Emerson who took showers with his clothes on to wash them, singing his song of the week off-key over and over;

• The anonymous player who, at match point, went to the sideline and took out his special racquet painted black which he used only for the final point;

• Abe Segal who loved food and ate a steak in three gulps, meatballs whole, and plates of spaghetti in only a few tennis-ball sized bites without chewing, "like hay being loaded"; 

• Forbes himself who saw visions at night of a wall falling on his roommate or a hand grenade tossed under his bed among dreams that require jumping out of bed, screaming warnings, and waking everyone except himself.

No detail of that era goes unnoticed by Forbes. Whether food or accommodations or playing surfaces or local girls, all are subtly, dryly recorded and commented on:

The [English] toilets themselves had long chains and used to flush like tidal waves, before dying to throaty gurgles and other internal rumblings, so that one finally returned to bed shaken and guilt-stricken after a perfectly ordinary widdle.

"Widdle"? Who uses that term anymore (ever)? Leave it to Forbes to perfectly preserve that innocent, slightly naughty description and capture the essence of that era. It's what makes this book so delightful, so real, and just so fun to linger over. Plus, I had met and hit with (briefly) several of these players, like Rod Laver, Carl Earn, and Allen Fox, so it was fun to read about their early exploits.

Yes, there certainly was an amateur age of tennis that will never be repeated. But thankfully, Gordon Forbes was there to tell us about it and the white-clad characters who made played for the love of the game and the adventures of the world around them.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Forbes, Gordon. Too Soon to Panic: A Memoir  

Follow up to Handful of Summers which covers an insider's view of the world of the early professional tennis circuit from the late sixties to the nineties, with stories of Ashe, Borg, Vilas, Graf, Agassi, and many more. Humorous, personable, and honest in its portrayal of this blossoming age of professional tennis.