Tennis Hits the Books
It is April 1 which means that Women’s History Month has concluded. Somehow that month came and went without the coverage of a book specifically about Billie Jean King. One reason for that glaring omission is because there are simply so many books and so little time. The other reason for the deferral of the topic of Billie Jean King is because All In, her forthcoming autobiography, isn’t scheduled to be released until later this year. I have already pre-ordered my copy.
Until that book drops, we will bide our time by examining a book written by Billie Jean on how to play the sport. Billie Jean King’s Secrets of Winning Tennis was originally published in 1974. I owned the “Bantam Edition” of this title which came out when I was in the third grade in 1975. Somewhere along the way, I lost my original copy of that book, but eagerly snatched up a replacement recently from a second hand bookstore. It was a sentimental purchase.
While Billie Jean provides a wealth of practical tennis instruction in that compact little book, much of the information was more relevant during the era of wooden racquets and continental grips. The stroke production instruction is fairly dated, but I appreciate the walk down memory lane. It was simply how we played tennis back in the day.
The philosophy about playing tennis tactically and strategically when competing stands the test of time. The entire book is written in the form of short questions followed by succinct information packed response. For example, the question of “How can I aim the ball?” was met with the observation that players shouldn’t aim the ball but rather hit it to a spot. Billie Jean shares that when players aim the ball they tend to shorten the swing and follow through which perversely reduces the control over the shot. That is a universal truth of tennis.
As Secrets of Winning Tennis was written by a female superstar during the rise of the women’s professional tour, it is apparent that there was a push to include information geared directly to women in the book. Some topics dealt directly with playing while menstruating or while pregnant. More telling is Billie Jean’s response to the question of whether tennis should be taught differently to women and men. That answer is a resounding no.
In fact, looking back through Secrets of Winning Tennis, I am struck by how much it shaped my own philosophy not only on how to play the game, but about gender separation in the sport in general. To this day I bristle when tennis facilities offer drills that are restricted to either men or women. Tennis is a sport where athletes of all shapes and sizes can directly compete.
Billie Jean King arguably did more to build women’s professional tennis than any other person on the planet. In the remaining four Thursdays in April our “Tennis Hits the Books” series will focus on two men who also made significant contributions to the development of the sport for the women during the same era. The identifies of those two men might be surprising.
Secrets of Winning Tennis has been out of print for well over 40 years. While I see a few copies on the secondary online markets, they are priced more as collectors items than reading material. If you stumble across a cheap copy, it is worth the investment just for a peek at how tennis used to be played back in the day. In the meantime, we should all line up to order our advance copies of All In. I am sure that it will be amazing.
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