Book Cover Image of The Right Set: A Tennis Anthology by Caryl Phillips

The Right Set: A Tennis Anthology
by Caryl Phillips

    Publication Date: Jul 27, 1999
    List Price: $16.95
    Format: Paperback, 352 pages
    Classification: Fiction
    ISBN13: 9780375706462
    Imprint: Vintage
    Publisher: Penguin Random House
    Parent Company: Bertelsmann

    Description of The Right Set: A Tennis Anthology by Caryl Phillips


    From stately lawns and gentlemen players to Andre Agassi and Venus Williams: 65 great writings on tennis that chronicle the transformation of the sport.

    Since its inception, tennis has embraced traditions more patrician than plebeian. But times—and tennis—have changed. The game once reserved for royalty has moved from estate lawns to the concrete courts of the city. Old guard amateurs have given way to prodigies plastered with corporate logos. And while barriers of gender, race, and class have been shattered, the modern plagues of self-promotion, the paparazzi, and challengers of ever-escalating talent loom large.

    In The Right Set, award-winning novelist and editor Caryl Phillips presents a collection of writings on the remarkable evolution of a gentleman’s pastime into a sport of jet-set players of athletic and psychological genius. Here are the stories of champions, from the Renshaw twins to "ghetto Cinderella" Venus Williams. Here, too, are volleys between tradition and innovation—debates on everything from etiquette and earnings to André Agassi’s rejection of the customary tennis whites. Insightful, informative, wonderfully entertaining, The Right Set is as colorful and surprising as the game itself.


    John McPhee on Ashe vs. Graebner
    David Higdon on Venus Williams
    James Thurber on Helen Wills
    Martina Navratilova on Bad Losers
    Martin Amis on Smashing the Rackets
    and more



    book cover The Right Set: A Tennis Anthology by Caryl PhillipsBooks similiar to The Right Set: A Tennis Anthology may be found in the categories below: