The Racket

Reviews

If it's not a contender for Sports Book of the Year, the world has gone mad. A brilliant, unvarnished look at a brutal sporting life. His funny, sometimes painful, memoir, is a brilliant insider's look at the brutally competitive world of tennis as well as a meditation on moments missed by inches. A crushing reminder of the grist from which sporting greatness emerges An excellent book A searingly honest account of the real world of tennis A brutally honest assessment of his career and the effort it took to take him to the margins of the world’s elite. A visceral, melancholy and often self-lacerating book … History is usually written by the winners, but this intelligent, unvarnished, emotionally draining memoir shows why an also-ran’s perspective can be just as valuable As elegant and powerful as a Federer backhand … It’s Kitchen Confidential for tennis Conor Niland may only have managed a career-high ranking of 129 – only? that is some achievement in itself! – but The Racket, his account of how he managed this, is up there with the best half-dozen books on tennis ever written. Genuinely such a brilliant book, a brilliant read One of the best Irish sports books of the last decade An entertaining behind-the-scenes glimpse at life on the global tour A fascinating, self-deprecating insight into the life of a tennis professional who isn’t one of the prize-grabbing elite Expand reviews