Tennis Hits the Books
One of my goals for 2022 is to be more on top of the upcoming release dates for new tennis books. There are four books coming soon that I am tracking for review once they are published. I am kind of surprised that there aren’t any more tennis titles than that coming up. Perhaps there are some forthcoming great tennis books that are still pending publication announcements.
 | Queen of the Court: The Extraordinary Life of Tennis Legend Alice Marble This is hands down my most eagerly anticipated book of 2022. With previous reviews on this site of The Divine Miss Marble: A Life of Tennis, Fame, and Mystery, The Road to Wimbledon, and Courting Danger: My Adventures in World Class Tennis, Golden Age Hollywood and High-Stakes Spying, my interest in books on the subject of Alice Marble is clear. I am actively lobbying for an advance copy of this title. If that doesn’t happen, you can anticipate a review shortly after the publication date, April 6, 2022. |
 | Essential Tennis: Improve Faster, Play Smarter, and Win More Matches Ian Westerman runs an online tennis instruction program at essential tennis.com. I subscribe to his podcast and occasionally watch one of his videos. I have a genuine curiosity about what his product looks like when packaged into a book format. This book is scheduled for publication May 31, 2022. |
 | Barty: Much More Than Tennis I am usually not a fan of biographies of players that are still in the middle of their competitive careers. That general rule becomes somewhat pliable when the subject is Ashleigh Barty. Part of that piques my interest is because she stepped away from tennis early on in her career before acknowledging struggles with mental health in tennis was cool. Her story is obviously still unfolding, making this book a waypoint on the way of what is clearly an unfinished narrative. I am enough of a fan of Barty to invest the time on this one. The book is scheduled for publication January 15, 2022, shortly before the Australian Open commences. |
 | 41-Love: A Memoir I am a sucker for tennis books by serious writers. Scarlett Thomas is a successful novelist and a senior academic who wrote a memoir that has a tennis theme. In a fit of mid-life crisis Thomas returned to tennis, a sport that she had loved but inexplicably abandoned when she was 14. The pre-publication press indicates that it is both heartbreaking and funny. It comes out January 4, 2022, but I will probably wait until after the Australian Open concludes to tackle this one. |
