Steve Flink is probably one of the few people who could write Immortals of American Tennis with firsthand connections spanning a significant portion of the history he covers. He has been writing about tennis for more than 50 years, interviewed many of the players who populate the book, and accumulated an enormous archive of material from his career covering the sport. That background gave me fairly high expectations for this book.
Immortals of American Tennis profiles 19 players Flink considers worthy of immortality in the history of American tennis. Rather than structuring that history as a continuous narrative, Flink devotes a largely independent capsule to each player. The approach makes the book remarkably accessible. Pick a player, read the corresponding profile, and come away with a solid understanding of that person’s career and place within the sport.
In fact, if a student were assigned a biographical essay about one of the players included in the book, this would be an excellent place to start. Flink covers the major accomplishments and supplies enough context to explain why each player matters. He draws from his own reporting and interviews, but also liberally incorporates quotations and information from other published sources. The extensive bibliography then provides a roadmap for anyone interested in digging deeper.
Unfortunately, that structure also contributed to my biggest reservation about the book. Despite the quality of the research, I could never completely shake the sense that I was reading a series of very good book reports.
Part of that reaction undoubtedly comes from my own reading history. I read and review a lot of tennis books, including many of the sources Flink cites. Consequently, much of the material was already familiar to me. A reader approaching the history of American tennis without that background will almost certainly discover considerably more here than I did.
Even so, Flink managed to surprise me occasionally. His profile of Pancho Gonzalez, for example, includes considerably more of the player’s rough edges than I am accustomed to seeing in shorter accounts of his career. Among the details was Gonzalez’s 1947 bad-conduct discharge from the U.S. Navy. Flink does not elaborate on what conduct resulted in the discharge, which immediately made me want to know more. It was both an unexpected piece of information and an example of the limitations imposed by relatively compact profiles. Sometimes Flink opens a door that I wished he had walked through.
The bibliography produced some similar discoveries. It is impressively deep, and while I had already read many of the books Flink references, there were enough unfamiliar titles to send me scouring the secondhand book market for copies. I consider that a meaningful accomplishment. I read enough obscure tennis books that finding additional ones I did not know existed is becoming increasingly difficult.
The decision to make each profile largely independent also creates some interesting inconsistencies. One minor example bothered me more than it probably should have. The romance between Chris Evert and Jimmy Connors appears in Evert’s profile but not Connors’. There is an obvious structural explanation. Evert appears first, Flink has already covered the relationship, and repeating the same material later would consume limited space.
Still, I found the asymmetry nagging. A relationship involving two of the most prominent American tennis players of their generation becomes part of the woman’s biography but not the man’s. I don’t know that this reflects anything more consequential than an editorial decision to avoid repetition. However, the capsule format invites readers to consume individual profiles independently. Someone reading only about Evert encounters the relationship as part of her story. Someone reading only about Connors does not find out about it as part of his. That makes the editorial choice more noticeable than it would be in a continuous history.
Flink certainly provides historical context within the individual profiles, but I occasionally wanted him to pull farther back and tell me what he saw across them. Few writers have his combination of historical knowledge, firsthand observation, and access to the people who shaped the sport. I wanted more of the connective tissue that only someone with that perspective could provide.
That may also explain why I was simultaneously impressed by Immortals of American Tennis and somewhat underwhelmed by it. The book Flink actually wrote is a valuable resource. My reservations comes partly from imagining another book that he was uniquely qualified to write.
For someone who does not already know much about the history of tennis in the United States, this book offers an efficient way to come up to speed. Nineteen profiles provide a broad introduction to many of the people who defined American tennis, while Flink’s sourcing gives interested readers somewhere to go next. Even readers with considerably more background are likely to encounter details they did not know.
I also suspect I will return to the book differently than the way I initially read it. Its independent profiles make it particularly well suited to reference. If I am writing about one of these players several years from now, Immortals of American Tennis will be an obvious book to pull from the shelf.
Perhaps that is the best way to evaluate what Flink has produced. I hoped for a book that would use his extraordinary vantage point to tell me something larger about the history of American tennis. Instead, I got a well-researched collection of the individual histories of some of the people who made it. That is less satisfying as a sustained reading experience than I hoped for, but it may ultimately make Immortals of American Tennis more useful as a resource.
Immortals of American Tennis (<- Sponsored Link)
Fiend At Court participates in the Amazon Associates program and receives a paid commission on any purchases made via the links in this article. Details on the disposition of proceeds are available on the “About Fiend at Court” page.
