Tennis Hits the Books
Alice Marble claimed that she wrote her first book in response to requests from her friends and fans to share her secrets of success. The more likely reality is that the motivation for the effort was rooted in the financial realities of the pre-open era in tennis. Writing books was one way that tennis players could monetize their tennis achievements without jeopardizing their amateur status.
As was observed in previous reviews of her other biographies, The Divine Miss Marble and Courting Danger, Marble isn’t always a reliable narrator of her own story. As fabulous as she was in real life, she was possessed by a desire to be even more. That same drive, coupled with natural athleticism, is likely what propelled her to become a great tennis champion in the first place.
The secrets Marble shared about her tennis achievements traces her early development from the public courts of the Golden Gate Park. She was a self-taught player that didn’t enjoy the benefit of a coach until she had already won the California State Championship and traveled and the US National Championships at Forest Hills. Marble’s most stunning tennis accomplishment may arguably have been rebuilding her stroke mechanics from the ground up under the tutelage of Eleanor “Teach” Tennant and Harwood “Beese” White.
Throughout The Road to Wimbledon, Marble shares her experience, knowledge, and insight that constitutes her blueprint for tennis competition. She emphasized the importance of strict physical training. To Marble that included both conditioning and stroke mechanics. She also identified mental discipline as essential for the rigors of physical training in addition to concentration when competing.
Marble also details how the players of her time worked through their local and national tennis federations as the gatekeepers of competitive play at the highest levels. One incident detailed in the book highlights how the USLTA reacted when she was diagnosed with tuberculosis, jeopardizing her playing career. The USTLA president expressed more concern over the organizations inability to use Marble to generate future gate receipts rather than the health of the player.
The power of encouragement is a recurring theme throughout The Road to Wimbledon. The book is filled with stories about people going out of their way to lift her up during her greatest moments of despair. One example of such a story was how the great American tennis champion Mary K Browne sat her down after a tough loss at the US National Championships to both encouraged her and outline some of the fundamental changes that Marble needed to make to her game to reach her full potential.
The Road to Wimbledon was published in 1946. It has been out of print for a long time and I personally regard it as a collectors item, though the used copy in my possession wasn’t priced as such. It is the kind of book that will mark you as a true tennis aficionado.
 | The Road to Wimbledon |
