The Circuit: A Tennis Odyssey by Rowan Ricardo Philllips (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) effortlessly proves an important point and raises a fascinating question. The point is that a talented poet such as Mr. Phillips may double as an excellent sportswriter. The question is: what accounts for the affinity that poets feel for tennis?
A part of the answer -- only a part but a crucial one -- is that the tennis players on the professional tour today are remarkable by any standards. On top we have the matchless Roger Federer, crowd favorite Rafael (Rafa) Nadal of the muscular arms and chest, and Novak Djokovich, the gluten-free Serb, who has won the last three grand slams (Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open) and is the current king of the court. There are numerous others not far behind (Andy Murray, whose best days may be behind him, Juan Porto del Martin, Stan Wawrinka, and some exciting and very tall up-and-comers). On the ladies' side we have in Serena Williams an all-time great and, waiting in the wings, the player who upset Serena in the US Open last September, Naomi Osaka, among others.
Tennis played on the level of these practitioners at their best is a beautiful game to watch (not to mention that the players themselves are extremely handsome). Each player in a match of greats can bring out the best in the other -- as in fabled matches between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe in 1980 or between Federer and Nadal in 2008. And as when two boxers embrace at the end of a grueling bout, there is a level of unity between worthy opponents that transcends the brutality of antagonism. There is also a unique quality of sportsmanship such that when McEnroe, in his bad boy days, or Serena last September, violates it with a tantrum, we are as shocked and saddened as repelled. To take the most celebrated of all players on the male circuit, and to resort to a well-worn locution, Federer conducts himself as a champion off as well as on the court. There is the same grace in an extended volley between Federer and Nadal as was exhibited by Joe DiMaggio chasing down a fly ball in center field.
In 2016 Rowan Ricardo Phillips broke his Achilles' heel and found himself confined to a couch for the better part of a year in a house near Barcelona. To while away the time he watched matches on Spanish television where the commentators leave it in no doubt that they are rooting for Nadal, Garbiñe Muguruza, or any other Spaniard in competition. A tennis player himself, Mr Phillips watched some matches thrice in their entirety. And it was then that he decided he would follow the entire 2017 world tennis tour with the object of writing the present book.
Less a journal than a journey in pursuit of a sublime experience of "beauty that must die," The Circuit is a joy to read. Mr. Phillips explains tennis's unique system of scoring and includes a helpful glossary, and the book will be valuable to any newcomer attracted to watch Wimbledon next July with a Pimm's Cup in hand. For the aficionado, the prose delivers insights worth having; in two brilliant pages early in the book, Phillips brings Andy Murray's game and personality to light in prose that is as vivacious as it is lucid, and just wait till he gets to the rivalry between Federer and Nadal, which was the story of the sport in 2017.
I have a further reason for identification with the author of The Circuit. Like him I was on the disabled list for most of a year -- in my case, 2015 -- and spent much of the time watching tennis on television, though I cannot claim the distinction of doing that in Barcelona, with Spanish announcers, and celebrating the restoration of health by chronicling in vibrant prose a year's worth of tournaments. -- DL
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