Tennis publishing has no shortage of titles that promise insight while offering very little of substance, particularly when written by former players outside household-name status. Consequently, I hesitated before committing to reading Know: A Tennis Book by Emilio Benefele Alvarez. In fact, without the promise of a foreword penned by Emilio Sánchez Vicario lending credibility, I might have skipped over this title altogether or relegated it to the bottom of my “maybe someday” queue. Nevertheless, I downloaded a kindle sample, read the first few chapters, and was immediately hooked.
I have gradually come to realize that I enjoy tennis memoirs, especially those centered around a journey. Additionally, there is something compelling about players who toiled in relative obscurity, because they often reveal more about the lived reality of professional tennis than the polished and often ghost written stories of global superstars. Benfele Álvarez fits squarely into that category. He reached the Top 100, earned enough prize money to sustain himself on tour, and built a legitimate professional career without entering the celebrity tier of the sport. Interestingly, this memoir concludes shortly after he rose into the Top 100, even though his career continued beyond that for several more years. That editorial choice feels revealing. The true story being told here is the climb.
This is an artistic and touching memoir from someone who clearly loves tennis. Rather than unfolding as a conventional chronological autobiography, the book is arranged through short vignettes and written from multiple perspectives. At times he writes as the player living the experience. Elsewhere he observes himself from a distance. Most charmingly, he occasionally channels his teenage self, whose enthusiasm brings youthful energy into the narrative. The result is unusual, personal, and often inspiring.
In his forward, Sánchez Vicario describes the author as someone who excelled in the technical, tactical, and mental dimensions of tennis. That is a compliment of real substance that also hints that Benfele Álvarez’s success may have depended more on craft and understanding than on overwhelming physical talents. For recreational players, advice from athletic outliers can be difficult to emulate. Advice from someone who succeeded through insight, discipline, and competitive intelligence is more realistically practical.
One of the strongest themes in the book is that anyone who learns tennis gains the agency to decide what role the sport will play in life. Competition is only one path. Community, coaching, travel, fitness, identity, and personal growth are others. Benfele Álvarez’s own journey reflects that truth. After retiring from professional tennis, he discovered that coaching adults was his calling. That perspective gives the book an appealing respect for the broader tennis population rather than only the elite few.
That adult-player perspective also appears in his observations about the ITF Masters circuit. Many tennis books barely acknowledge that competitive tennis continues long after youth rankings and professional aspirations fade. This one does. It helps that the author has not only coached adults but also competed in that environment himself. He understands tennis after the professional dream because he has lived it.
Given that, it is no surprise that Know delivers practical value throughout the book for competitive recreational players. Benfele Álvarez makes the uncomfortable but accurate observation that the overwhelming desire to win often harms the very result players seek. Excess attachment to outcomes creates pressure, and pressure rarely improves decision-making or execution. He also offers the timeless truth that the way to improve is to play stronger players. Comfortable wins may protect confidence, but difficult matches expose the gaps in a game and force growth.
This book is especially strong when discussing how tennis is learned and understood. Benfele Álvarez describes himself as a student of the sport, and credits injury with deepening his tactical awareness because it forced him to watch others play while sidelined. There is a lesson there for club players. Improvement does not always require hitting balls. Sometimes it requires learning how to see the game more clearly.
I also loved his treatment of court positioning, anticipation, and recognition, ideas he effectively frames as learning to play without the ball. That is a sharp description of a truth many players miss. Tennis is not only played at contact. It is also played in the spaces between shots, in movement, recovery, pattern recognition, and early decision-making.
The mental side of the game receives similarly thoughtful treatment. Benfele Álvarez writes about losing confidence, and that leads into the book’s primary premise, the distinction between belief and knowing. Knowing, in his telling, is a higher level than belief or faith. Truly confident players do not merely hope they can win. They know with certainty that they possess what is required to compete. That is a sophisticated and useful framework for anyone who has ever searched for confidence during a match.
Despite his obvious love for tennis, the book also captures periods when Benfele Álvarez lost touch with that feeling. He writes about those stretches beautifully, in a way that suggests the love itself never truly disappeared. It was only obscured by the pressures surrounding the sport. That is another idea many lifelong players will recognize.
Pulling back the curtain a bit, I debated whether to review this book first or the one I received earlier this year from Claudio Pistolesi. I ultimately chose this one because writing about a Spanish player aligns nicely with the Mutua Madrid Open coming up next week. It was gratifying to discover from Know that the two men crossed paths competitively. That only increases my anticipation for taking in Pistolesi’s book next week.
I thoroughly enjoyed Know: A Tennis Book. It is unusual to find a tennis memoir that also teaches. It is even more rare to find one that leaves the reader thinking about how knowing can be used to achieve a whole other level. Though part memoir and part instructional text, it offers substantial value for recreational competitive players who care about mindset, tactics, and how to think about tennis more intelligently.
It is also a love letter to tennis, and I am always here for that.
KNOW: – A TENNIS BOOK (<- Sponsored Link)
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