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TENNIS: Great Stars, Great Moments by Andrew Lawrence

TENNIS: Great Stars, Great Moments

By

Pub Date: Aug. 1st, 1976
Publisher: Putnam

Lawrence profiles twelve tennis greats in ten chapters (as four of the five women are doubled up), beginning at the all-time top with ""unbeatable"" Bill Tilden and ending--you guessed it--with ""relentless' Jimmy Connors (whom, incidentally, we got to know much better in Burchards' recent Sports Hero entry, p. 735, J-257). Lawrence fills in with a minimum of biographical anecdote--how Pancho Gonzales taught himself to play with a 51¢ racket his mother bought him instead of the bike he'd asked for--but mostly this is a playback of key matches in which the featured players did well, combined with analyses of their special gifts--Chris Everts' ""amazing powers of concentration,"" Connors' return of service, ""the finest the game has ever known."" Billie Jean King is the only player of the twelve who is seen here chiefly off the court--especially in her fight for equal pay, which made her ""more than an athlete, . . . a symbol of women's rights."" A routine but handy compilation.