Brooks on Books: Tennis, Anyone?

I consider myself a casual tennis fan these days, someone who hasn't played in way too long but wishes he did and someone who constantly wishes he followed the sport a little more closely than he does. Here are a few book recommendations for you fans to check out in between French Open matches:

Hardcourt Confidential by Patrick McEnroe (with Peter Bodo) sounds like it's going to tear the lid off professional tennis, but it's not really that kind of book. P-Mac is candid and willing to criticize players like Serena Williams where it's warranted, and he does offer an inside look at the game, but it's not a gossipy tell-all.

Instead, it's a fine blend of memoir, analysis of the sport, and in-depth look at certain aspects of tennis that don't get a lot of mainstream media coverage. Most significant is McEnroe's exploration of the Davis Cup. Drawing on his experience as a player and captain, he really covers the competition from all angles. His stories about managing players and personalities offer a side of tennis I hadn't read much about. Since I have fond childhood memories of watching USA Davis Cup performances on ESPN, I loved that the book spent so much time on this subject.

McEnroe also covers his own career as player, broadcaster, USTA official, and, yes, he talks plenty about brother John as well. He doesn't air out much dirty laundry, but he does offer glimpses into what it's like to play in John's shadow and also to play against him and with him in doubles. I even enjoyed reading about his stint as a regular on Don Imus' radio show. Throughout, possibly aided by noted tennis writer Bodo, he comes off as a straight shooter and a heck of a guy, and this book should delight aficionados of the game, though fans more casual than myself might not get as wrapped up in the Davis Cup stuff. It saddens me that the event doesn't mean more right now in this country, but I'm just saying.

A Terrible Splendor by Marshall Jon Fisher is also pretty hardcore tennis from a historic perspective. Speaking of Davis Cup, Fisher tells in great detail the saga of an epic 5-set semifinal match in a USA vs. Germany contest played at Wimbledon in 1937. Fisher does not merely relate the story of this particular event, though he does cover that in exciting fashion. He offers mini-biographies of players Gottfried Von Cramm and Don Budge (you can probably guess which guy represents which country), offers basic overviews of tennis history and especially Davis Cup history, and, oh, by the way, takes us into the turmoil created by the rise of Nazi Germany.

It's testament to Fisher's skill that he combines all these aspects while maintaining the narrative suspense and building up to the conclusion of the match. There are basically 5 chapters, "Set One, Set Two," and so on, and Fishers uses each set as a springboard to go back and fill in all of the other stories. The event itself is a big deal, as it means a lot to all the participants and their home countries. Davis Cup was a much bigger part of the national consciousness in 1937, as Fisher shows. And while it may be overstating things to say Von Cramm was "playing for his life" against the legendary Budge, well...I don't want to give much away, as I think the story is more compelling if you know few of the details, but Von Cramm certainly felt the pressure of essentially representing the Nazi regime, and the lengthy "Aftermatch" section of the book is just as engrossing as the rest.

My quibble with "Splendor" is that because Fisher jumps back and forth in time, the text confuses sometimes. I grew up loving and studying baseball history, so I can follow an account of, say, the late 1970s when the Yankees seemed to face the Royals and the Dodgers ever year in the playoffs, and not feel my head explode. However, the highest levels of the 1930s featured many matches with the same players going at each other in similar circumstances, and while Fisher does his best to differentiate and lay it out with clarity, it is easy to feel a little bogged down when reading and going to this Wimbledon or this Davis Cup with these same guys playing in the semis or in the finals or whatever.

Another interesting thing is that even as Fisher makes Von Cramm and Budge come alive, the most interesting figure in the book remains Big Bill Tilden, who plays a surprising but key part in "Splendor" and steals the show, especially if you're not familar with the particulars of his life. You come away wanting to read a more in-depth biography of THAT guy--"And guess who wrote a big bio of Bill Tilden," said Frank Deford with an evil twirl of his mustache!

McEnroe's book reveals his love of and respect for tennis and shows his commitment to it, but it does sometimes feel a bit breezy; Fisher's work just feels weightier. After all, we have Nazis and politics and history and everything. Each book deserves a big recommendation for serious tennis fans; the more casual ones may want to be a little more careful. I'll say this, though: If you're interested enough in the sport to want to read a book about it, you should get a lot out of each one. Fisher's has enough general and social history to perhaps be of more interest to those who aren't huge fans, but it is loaded with enough detail to satisfy those who are.