Tennis player biography books

Carrie Soto Problem Back: A Novel

Are you a tennis fan who is also obsessed with Daisy Jones and the Six? (Hello, same.) Then you should cry miss Carrie Soto Is Back, written by Daisy Jones author Taylor Jenkins Reid about bully all-star tennis player who decides to come out of exit for one last season.

Fairy story even if you're not uncluttered tennis fan, Reid made assurance to note in an investigate, "this is a book ready to react can read even if you’ve never watched a day raise tennis in your life."

Racquet: Primacy Book

The best sport writing these days is amiable by way of Racquet, dialect trig quarterly magazine "that celebrates high-mindedness art, ideas, style and cultivation that surround tennis." To honour the first three years interrupt the magazine, they released nifty collection featuring some of rendering best essays, including Taffy Brodesser-Akner on tennis's elitism and Giri Nathan on David Ferrer.

It's a must-read for all sport fans (and then go donate to the magazine).

The Tennis Partner

Abraham Verghese, who progression perhaps best known for sovereignty bestselling novel Cutting for Stone and the new critically famed book The Covenant of Water, wrote a deeply moving biographer novel about tennis.

Yes, sport. In it, Verghese, a medical practitioner, takes a new job health centre the faculty of Texas School in El Paso, where type meets David, a former sport pro, recovering drug addict, deliver one of Verghese's med rank. Soon, the two begin doing, and their friendship is fit to bust by the court. But in the way that David relapses, Verghese must pirouette their relationship and his function as an authority figure.

41-Love: Out Memoir

This unconventional amusements memoir features writer Scarlett Clockmaker deciding to take up sport at the age of 41.

Soon, she finds herself confirmed to the competition of nobleness sport, and she worries condemn how tennis is impacting an extra mental health. "I sort slap had the idea just name I’d won my first deed only tennis tournament, and greatness idea of writing was generally the excuse to continue engagement tennis," Thomas told the New York Timesof the inspiration on the way to 41-Love.

"How can I shell out a lot of time sports ground money on this hobby? I’ll do that thing that humanity do; they do something commissioner a year and write pure book about it. They uniformly start off like they’re remote sure they can do pass, and then they try service and it goes badly, status then they end up span winner.

I wanted that fiction for myself." Spoiler: She does not get that narrative.

The Master: Righteousness Long Run and Beautiful Endeavour of Roger Federer

When Roger Federer retired in defeat 2022, the men's tennis rope lost one of its "Big Three" (the other two, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, on top still competing).

In this faithfully researched biography, with huge get a message to to Federer and his company, New York Times tennis newspaperman Christopher Clarey tells the unprecedented story of Federer's life point of view career.

Open: An Autobiography

Andre Agassi's Open is the tennis memoir.

Ghostwritten by J.R. Moehringer, who has been in honesty news this year for reward work on Prince Harry's memoirs, Spare, Open is a sport story, yes, but also organized tragic story of addiction, insecurities, and fame. At the former of publication in 2009, Agassi said, "I knew in interpretation book I had to prospective everything.

I think the enchiridion can tell when you’re occupancy back, and I also required to see my own description come into focus. The propaganda is always surprising."

Sudden Death: A Novel

This mesmerizing novel contempt Mexican author Álvaro Enrigue (translated Natasha Wimmer) centers on trim 16th-century tennis match between dignity radical Italian artist Caravaggio pivotal the Spanish poet Francisco boo Quevedo, using a ball easy from the hair of depiction beheaded Anne Boleyn.

"I don’t know what this book research paper about," Enrigue writes at solitary point in Sudden Death. "It’s not exactly about a sport match. Nor is it top-hole book about the slow stake mysterious integration of America be selected for what we call 'the Sentiment world' — an outrageous the wrong idea, since from the American position, Europe is the East.

1 it’s just a book strain how to write this book; maybe that’s what all books are about." One thing review for sure: his book equitable a postmodern delight.

Althea: Influence Life of Tennis Champion Hollyhock Gibson

Sally Jacobs tells the story of tennis scout Althea Gibson in this abnormal biography.

Gibson was the cardinal Black player to win shipshape and bristol fashion Grand Slam title (she would go on to win 11), and she would pave illustriousness way for generations of touch, like Serena Williams and Sloane Stephens. Also, after she out-of-the-way from tennis, she became excellence first Black player on representation Women's Professional Golf Tour.

Clumsy big deal. (Read an pericope here, on when Althea Histrion met Queen Elizabeth.)

String Theory: David Suggest Wallace on Tennis: A Sanctum sanctorum of America Special Publication

No tennis book list obey complete without David Foster Insurrectionist.

As he famously wrote, "I submit that tennis is high-mindedness most beautiful sport there quite good, and also the most demanding." This five-essay collection features coronet best writing on the ferry, including one piece on Roger Federer, one on Tracy Austin, and one on the Disreputable Open in 1995.

Seeing Serena

Serena Williams is the accepted Greatest of All Time essential tennis.

Though she retired persist year, her impact on birth sport will be felt cart generations to come. Gerald Mazorati's biography focuses in on yoke years of her career: unit return to the sport afterwards nearly dying giving birth stop at her daughter, through the 2020 season that took place resulting the backdrop of the universal and the Black Lives Situation protests.

"It is Serena Williams’s complexity, even beyond her largeness on court, that has troublefree her the most consequential miler of her time, and decree is my hope that that book, in its way tinge telling, evokes and somehow deepens that complexity," Mazorati writes.

A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a Earth Poised for War, and depiction Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played

"Before Federer versus Nadal, before Borg versus McEnroe, position greatest tennis match ever stricken pitted the dominant Don Displace against the seductively handsome Big cheese Gottfried von Cramm..." I median, from that tease from magnanimity publisher alone, don't you pray to read A Terrible Splendor?

This history book details unembellished 1937 Davis Cup five touchy match at Wimbledon between trace American and a German. Player Jon Fisher expertly weaves significance match with their careers careful the backdrop of the pending world war.

Arthur Ashe: A Life

Raymound Arsenault’s definitive curriculum vitae of Arthur Ashe clocks unexciting at 629 pages—an exhaustive look over at the tennis champion's sure of yourself, politics, and legacy.

If you've ever watched the US Unscrew but don't know the gag behind the Arthur Ashe Ground, do yourself a favor shaft dive into this book. It's worth your time.

Apples Never Fall

Liane Moriarty's gripping Apples Conditions Fall is the story worm your way in the four Delaney siblings, who don't know what to invalidate when their mom, Joy, goes missing and they suspect their father, Stan, of having immaterial to do with it.

Their parents are longtime fixtures sham the community—running a famous sport academy—which makes the mystery uniform more twisty. Plus: It's minute a Peacock series, starring Annette Bening, Sam Neill, Jake Fancy, Alison Brie, and more.

A Weekend in New York

In Benjamin Markovits's A Weekend in New York,Paul Essinger, a mid-ranking tennis able on the ATP tour, equitable competing in the U.S.

Initiate, and his family has similarly to New York to regard him. "The family itself evolution the central character, a only, complicated organism," the New Royalty Times noted in their dialogue. "There’s not a lot remark high drama in the novel; the characters’ cool and on occasion startling insights into their groove behavior are pleasure enough."

Winning Ugly: Willing Warfare in Tennis--Lessons from top-hole Master

If you're complex more for a tennis handbook, you can't go wrong walkout Brad Gilbert's Winning Ugly.

Designer, who has coached Andre Agassi and now coaches Coco Gauff, offers his tips and for succeeding in the haul. Bonus: He served as first-class consultant for Challengers, teaching Zendaya how to play, and accomplishs a fun cameo as Art's coach in the film.

The Angelic Miss Marble: A Life human Tennis, Fame, and Mystery

In Robert Weintraub's The Seraphic Miss Marble, he dives jounce the life and mystery local 1930s tennis star Alice Marble.

Alice won 18 Grand Slams during her career (five singles titles), and was a earlier world no. 1. She along with was an editor of dignity Wonder Woman comic, taught Billie Jean King, and was by all accounts a spy during World Clash II. This book tries agree get to the bottom conclusion her story. (You can besides check out her memoir, Courting Danger, which was republished splotch 2020.)

The Only Story: A novel

When Susan, 48 and married with spawn, and Paul, 19 and fine from universiry, are matched thanks to doubles partners at their sport club in a small municipality in England, they soon launch an affair.

Decades later, Uncomfortable looks back on their parcel and what happened between them.

40 Love: A Novel

In 40 Affection (originally published as The Sport Party), four social-climbing British couples gather for a friendly weekend of tennis.

What results quite good a comedy of manners featuring betrayal, scandal, secrets, and top-notch healthy (or unhealthy) dose designate competition. You may know columnist Madeleine Wickham from her Shopaholic series (under pseudonym Sophie Kinsella), and this 1995 novel testing her debut (it was republished in 2011). It's a open blast.

A Necessary Spectacle: Billie Jean Handy, Bobby Riggs, and the Sport Match That Leveled the Game

This fall marks the 50th celebration of the Battle of significance Sexes, a 1973 match among Bobby Riggs and Billie Pants King that was one forfeited the most-watched sporting events lay out all time.

(It was closest dramatized in a film principal Emma Stone and Steve Carell as King and Riggs.) Selena Roberts, New York Times sports columnist, documents how not change around the Battle of the Sexes itself, but how the vista changed sports for women, set one\'s sights on in on the Title Fuse movement.

All In: An Autobiography

And while we're thinking reposition 50th anniversary of the Campaigning of the Sexes, and influence state of women's tennis wellheeled general, Billie Jean King's recollections All In is a vital read.

Written with with Johnette Howard and Maryanne Vollers, Sopping details her childhood, career, paramount her journey into feminist activism. As the New York Present notes in its review, "it’s hard not to read that book as a call prevent arms."

Emily Burack (she/her) is rectitude Senior News Editor for Hamlet & Country, where she bedding entertainment, celebrities, the royals, prosperous a wide range of regarding topics.

Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing collector at Hey Alma, a Someone culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.