The Art of Tennis

A celebration of tennis, its cultural influence, the game and its players, for any fan. Discover how the game has inspired paintings, ballets, music, fiction, poetry, theatre, and even clothing--all because the game of tennis is an art form of its own.

Tennis is a game of precision, timing, athleticism, strategy, and, sometimes, a little luck. Small wonder this sport attracts so many players and fans--including artists and writers who see something transcendent in hitting a ball with a racket over a net and inside a rectangular field.

As Nicholas Fox Weber writes, "The thrill of the thwack of the racquet and the perpetual state of suspense about what is coming next appeals to individuals from every walk of life....It has prompted the creation of sublime architecture and moved composers of music in wonderful new directions; it has seeded literary fantasy and been the source of hilarious cartoons. It has also, in fabulous ways, enabled human beings to demonstrate some of their most admirable qualities: courage, tenacity, generosity of heart."

This book explores the charisma and spell the sport has cast on the likes of Nabokov, Coco Chanel, Caravaggio, and Bonnard. And, of course, there is much about the players who have given the sports its special magic, from the master strategist Bill Tilden to the supreme exemplar of athleticism, Novak Djokovic.

Weber, best known for artworld biographies, has been a lifelong tennis player and takes us through his own personal relationship with the sport: from his college-age summers in the 1960s working at New Hampshire's Tamarack Tennis Camp to a pickup game on a court in Guangzhou, China where he was struck, yet again, that tennis is its own language, understood by all who play it.

Whether a reader is fluent in the language of tennis or just admires it as an outsider, The Art of Tennis will delight all lovers of the game.