Best Tennis Reading Ever

[ochi]

I enjoyed the excerpt from Tom Brown's "As Tom Goes By: My Life In Tennis," and intend to read the rest of it. The best tennis memoirs I have come across so far are by Gordon Forbes -- "A Handful of Summers" and "Too Soon to Panic." Forbes played the pro circuit in the '50s and '60s, even beating Rod Laver once. His books are loaded with lore, zany anecdotes and humor.

[johnyandell]

Agreed. Gordon's books are classics.

[bottle]

Thank you, Ochi, I'll get ahold of that and read it.

[ochi]

How to get copies

"A Handful of Summers" has probably been out of print for many years. A friend was able to get a couple of copies of "Too Soon To Panic" for himself and friends last year. Many independent book shop owners know how to get like-new copies of books from used book stores across the country, and do it quickly, at low cost. Those two books are so good, I reread them once the details have become hazy. The humor holds up -- Forbes' stories about his doubles partner; Abe, how they looked forward to playing tournaments behind the Iron Curtain, where they would sell suitcases full of balls, along with their racquets, shirts and shorts, to get enough money to keep traveling, very frugally, on the European circuit; and how Rod Laver dreamed there was a burglar in his shared room late one night, and Forbes leaped from his bed and tackled a suit (if I recall it right), scaring the hell out of The Rocket.

I bet Tom Brown and John Yandell knew Forbes. If he is still alive, I hope Yandell will invite him to write a short piece including some of the anecdotes he might not have used in those two books -- and whatever observations he has about the professional game today. For example, most younger players do not know what the rules were before the networks got them changed for TV in the last '60s or early 70s. Players didn't sit down every odd set, for commercial breaks; they had no chairs, and got a 10-minute break after three sets, maybe to have a cold shower; and they could leave the court with both feet when serving. I recall Channel 13 in NYC showing Wimbledon all day long in the late '60s. Then CBS or NBC moved in, and the majors became almost as much commercials as tennis.

[moderntennis]

Tennis: Styles and Stylists by Paul Metzler is a great history of the game up to 1970 with lots of detail on how the past champions produced their strokes with particular emphasis on grips.