THE GAME: My 40 Years in Tennis

by Jack with Frank Deford Kramer ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 4, 1979

Jack Kramer may be most famous nowadays as a brand of tennis racket, but he has been a tennis presence since World War II--as amateur champ (""the first Wimbledon champion to wear short pants""), pro champ, coach, union leader, TV commentator (Billie Jean King's nemesis), and tireless promoter. So this chatty book--less an autobiography than a longwinded and disorganized grabbag of anecdotes and opinions--bounces around four decades of tennis, with as much to say about Bill Tilden as Bjorn Borg. Kramer obviously prefers the players of yesteryear (the greatest--Don Budge; the most underrated--Bobby Riggs), but he has little nostalgia for the way the sport was run back then: he attacks the pre-1960s ""shamateur"" system that barred pros from the big tournaments, creating a tennis world of ""athletic gigolos,"" phony champs, secret payoffs, and rotten officials. It was, however, a ""helluva lot of fun,"" and ""certainly we didn't dress like all the midnight cowboys who are on tour today."" Other things that bother Kramer today: Connors' laziness (""as far as I can tell, he can't be bothered to try and learn a drop shot""); ""dumb"" and selfish Ilie Nastase, who copped out on the Kramer-organized player boycott of Wimbledon '73; the hyping of women's tennis (which is intrinsically dull); metal rackets (""a marketing advance, not a competitive one""); and the hopelessness of World Team Tennis--""you just can't make it when your main attraction is mixed doubles,"" something Kramer learned on a disastrous Forties tour with Gorgeous Gussy Moran. A leisurely game, then, with more lobs than smashes--but fans, especially old-timers, will appreciate Kramer's rambling, rather humorless candor.

Pub Date: June 4, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1979

Categories: NONFICTION