The leading players and outstanding matches of two thrilling decades in tennis history From Rod Laver's amateur Grand Slam in 1962 to the first US Open held at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, legendary sportswriter Herbert Warren Wind captures the grace and drama of modern tennis in this brilliant collection drawn from the pages of the New Yorker. The era's biggest names, including Margaret Court, Chris Evert, John Newcombe, Arthur Ashe, and Pancho Gonzales, thrill the crowds of Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and Forest Hills, and America's Davis Cup team battles patriotic linesmen and frenzied fans in an epic showdown against the Romanians in Bucharest. In Mrs. King versus Mr. Riggs, Wind paints a witty and evocative portrait of Billy Jean King's historic beatdown of Bobby Riggs, and in Forest Hills and the Final Between Connors and Borg, he vividly recounts one of the wildest and woolliest tournaments in the sport's history. Rendered with the same authority and eloquence that led the New York Times to declare Wind the dean of American golf writers, these dispatches from center court testify to the celebrated journalist's passion and versatility.
"[Wind] is master at setting the stage for the contests he describes. As easily as a cardsharp with a stacked deck, he deals us history, anecdote and personality sketch in combinations that make us long for the climactic game and its resolution. . . . Absorbing . . . Vivid."
The New York Times
"It has been a pleasure over the years to have Herbert Warren Wind's timely, gentlemanly reports on top-level tennis in the New Yorker. . . . Fans will appreciate having this low-key, leisurely, impressionistic record of tennis in its booming decades."
Kirkus Reviews
"The most devoted American on the course, and the most elegant. His writing on [golf], and on tennis and other sports, too . . . was always spare, measured, and sure, like the man."
