The Rivals: Chris Evert & Martina Navratilova

I've recently read two books about tennis, one old and one new. Steve Tignor, in his column back when Dmitry Tursunov blogged his way to immortality (I haven't read more than two sentences of any other player's blog since) mentioned Gordon Forbes' A Handful of Summers as a must-read, and Steve doesn't have to tell me anything twice. I found the first few pages a bit overwrought, but once Forbes started spinning his tales of life on the tennis tour back in the 50s and 60s, I was captivated. I may not have laughed quite as often or as loudly as during the Tursunov week, but that's probably because I'm not quite as familiar with the cast of characters that Forbes hung around with. After all, this was pre-ESPN. Forbes is unquestionably the superior writer and his book is available on Amazon.com.

Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated recommended Johnette Howard's The Rivals and this too is a look at a different era of tennis, the beginning of the women's professional tennis tour. Billie Jean King plays a major role in Howard's book, but the 80 matches that Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova played are the heart of it. I'm probably not surprising anyone when I reveal that I've always preferred the men's game, due, I'm sure, to my exposure to it every August here in Kalamazoo. In the past two years I've seen considerable amounts of female tennis in the junior and college ranks and have developed a better appreciation for it, but that wasn't the case when these two dominated women's tennis. So the book filled a gaping hole in my tennis knowledge and yet I don't want it to sound as if it's a textbook. It is a revealing, sometimes gossipy and yet professional look at two very different women and how they mastered a sport, captured the imagination of sports fans and developed a lifelong friendship while doing so.

With the retirement announcement of Andre Agassi this weekend, we've reached the end of another tennis era. I hope its chronicle is as much fun to read as these two.