Fiend at Court Unplugged
When I first embarked on the project manifested by the Fiend at Court site, I would have asserted that I have little personal interest in the early history of international and professional tennis. The first appearances of early tennis stars in what was published was in the context of newspaper articles summarizing proposed changes to the ITF Rules of Tennis of their time. I am embarrassed to say, that some names that I did not initially recognize are now turning up repeatedly in the tennis books of their era.
For example, Ellsworth Vines is mentioned 15 distinct times in A Terrible Splendor. He is an instrumental character in many of those passages. I had never heard of him until I randomly came across the article featured in “Ellsworth Vines Cuts Strings” in an Australian news archive. In retrospect that is slightly embarrassing.
While I certainly have heard of Don Budge, I have to confess that I knew very little about him until I started in on A Terrible Splendor. Every page is a revelation. These early stars of tennis were so much more than their win and loss records on the court. Their stories are interesting independent of any triumphs and failures associated with tennis.
Every great book I read on tennis history elevates my concern for how modern tennis will be recorded and remembered. The public appetite for serious tennis history books is extremely low. The simple fact of the matter is that books about tennis do not sell very well. That has a depressive effect on significant new tennis books being written. It simply isn’t worth the authors time in many cases.
At this exact moment, the stars of professional tennis in 2021 are sequestered in hotels in Australia clearing COVID quarantine protocols. The rest of the world has a tiny window into that experience through twitter, instagram, and various other social media platforms.
Some of what has been published from the Australian quarantine is wonderfully entertaining. Other content makes the players look like spoiled petulant children. In many cases it is clear that a professional publicist is behind a player’s social media engine. The common thread is that it is all very superficial.
As I work through some of the classic books about tennis, I am struck by the fact that my reading queue grows rather than shrinks as titles are completed. A Terrible Splendor has added no less than three books to my reading list and I’m only at the midpoint.
I am not confident that tennis fans in the distant future will be able to experience the current era of tennis through the same lens. Certainly there will be a lot more footage of the actual matches. They will also have chirpy biographies of many players produced by their marketing teams. The lives of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will be available in excruciating detail.
In any event, I am feverishly working to backfill my own knowledge of tennis history. As I do so, I am struck by the fact that this exercise is deeply interesting. Additionally, I have discovered that there is a lot to learn from these early icons of tennis on how to successfully compete at the highest levels. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I am.
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