I love books. Consequently, I buy a lot of them. Each purchase typically comes with the optimistic assumption that I’ll read it right away. Unfortunately, more often than I’d like to admit, a new title ends up lingering on my (in this case, virtual) shelf far longer than intended. Tennis as a Wisdom Practice: A Story About the Quest for Mastery is one I have had in my collection for quite a while. It rose to the top of the queue as the perfect companion piece for one of last weekend’s “Happiness Project” posts that explored the possibility of creating happiness by simply emulating the behaviors of a spiritual master. Frankel’s book examines that idea in a completely tennis context.
In the foreword, Frankel calls this book a “love song to tennis,” and that sentiment permeates every chapter. This isn’t a technical manual or a match memoir, though it flirts with both of those things on a few occasions. Instead, it is a reflective, candid, and deeply personal narrative of one man’s relationship with the sport. At its heart, this is a book about the journey, not the destination. Mastery, in Frankel’s telling, is not about winning but rather about who you become through the process.
One of the author’s central questions is“Why do I even play competitive tennis?” That fundamental inquiry is one that many players could benefit from exploring. Additionally, the tennis ecosystem could also gain insight if more players would similarly share their experiences and perspectives. Frankel’s willingness to look inward and wrestle with that query gives the book its richness. The tennis world would be a better place if more players engaged in similar honest introspection.
His struggles with improvement and consistency struck a familiar chord. Frankel describes how he would bounce from one area of the game to another without ever quite addressing any issue to completion. That tendency to flit from one point of focus to the next, while never fully solving the original problem, is something I suspect many other tennis players can relate to, myself included.
Particularly compelling are Frankel’s insights into the ranking point system and the psychology it creates. He delves into how players chase points, sometimes at the expense of development or joy, and how the system itself shapes behavior. Anyone interested in how players respond to the incentives the USTA puts in front of them will find this section illuminating.
One of the book’s standout features is an entire chapter devoted to the connection between tennis and life skills. Most authors simply assert that such a connection exists, then move on. Frankel lingers, examining the why. For example, his reflections on how tennis can help improve the quality of attention, a skill that serves players both on and off the court, are particularly insightful.
Having just published my own book on resilience (albeit toward a very different context), I appreciated his framing of tennis as a training ground for that trait. The physical, mental, and emotional challenges of the sport offer daily opportunities to strengthen our capacity to recover and persist.
Frankel closes with a poetic take on senior tennis, describing it as “a game of conditioning, strategy, and attrition.” He observes that playing tennis at the latter stages of life becomes a meditation on mortality, an idea that feels especially resonant within the broader theme of tennis as a spiritual practice.
In short, Frankel set out to explore tennis as a vehicle for personal transformation, and in that quest, he nailed it.
Tennis as a Wisdom Practice: A Story About the Quest for Mastery (<- Sponsored Link)
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