20 Best Tennis Books of 2023

Jan 23, 2024

Every item on this page was chosen by a Town & Country editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

Forget beach reads, here's some courtside reading.

While tennis is a year-round activity, summer is really when the sport shines. With Memorial Day weekend kicking off the season for professionals with the French Open, it's definitely time to pull on your tennis whites (or at least a chic spectator 'fit). But, if you're merely a fan of the sport without the athletic proclivities for it, consider diving in to a book about tennis to get you in the summertime mood. Be it a memoir, history book, or really juicy novel, tennis books deliver the heart-pounding drama of a fantastic match. Here, 20 of our picks to read during summer 2023:

Are you a tennis fan who is also obsessed with Daisy Jones and the Six? (Hello, same.) Then you should not miss Carrie Soto Is Back, written by Daisy Jones author Taylor Jenkins Reid about an all-star tennis player who decides to come out of retirement for one last season. And even if you're not a tennis fan, Reid made sure to note in an interview, "this is a book you can read even if you’ve never watched a day of tennis in your life."

The best tennis writing these days is coming by way of Racquet, a quarterly magazine "that celebrates the art, ideas, style and culture that surround tennis." To mark the first three years of the magazine, they released a collection featuring some of the best essays, including Taffy Brodesser-Akner on tennis's elitism and Giri Nathan on David Ferrer. It's a must-read for all tennis fans (and then go subscribe to the magazine).

Abraham Verghese, who is perhaps best known for his bestselling novel Cutting for Stone and the new critically acclaimed book The Covenant of Water, wrote a deeply moving autobiographical novel about tennis. Yes, tennis. In it, Verghese, a physician, takes a new job on the faculty of Texas Tech in El Paso, where he meets David, a former tennis pro, recovering drug addict, and one of Verghese's med students. Soon, the two begin playing, and their friendship is shaped by the court. But when David relapses, Verghese must navigate their relationship and his role as an authority figure.

This unconventional sports memoir features writer Scarlett Thomas deciding to take up tennis at the age of 41. Soon, she finds herself addicted to the competition of the sport, and she worries about how tennis is impacting her mental health. "I sort of had the idea just after I’d won my first and only tennis tournament, and the idea of writing was basically the excuse to continue playing tennis," Thomas told the New York Times of the inspiration for 41-Love. "How can I spend a lot of time and money on this hobby? I’ll do that thing that people do; they do something for a year and write a book about it. They always start off like they’re not sure they can do it, and then they try it and it goes badly, and then they end up a winner. I wanted that narrative for myself." Spoiler: She does not get that narrative.

When Roger Federer retired in fall 2022, the men's tennis tour lost one of its "Big Three" (the other two, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, are still competing). In this meticulously researched biography, with huge access to Federer and his team, New York Times tennis correspondent Christopher Clarey tells the remarkable story of Federer's life and career.

Andre Agassi's Open is the tennis memoir. Ghostwritten by J.R. Moehringer, who has been in the news this year for his work on Prince Harry's memoir, Spare, Open is a tennis story, yes, but also a tragic story of addiction, insecurities, and fame. At the time of publication in 2009, Agassi said, "I knew in the book I had to expose everything. I think the reader can tell when you’re holding back, and I also wanted to see my own narrative come into focus. The truth is always surprising."

This mesmerizing novel by Mexican author Álvaro Enrigue (translated Natasha Wimmer) centers on a 16th-century tennis match between the radical Italian artist Caravaggio and the Spanish poet Francisco de Quevedo, using a ball made from the hair of the beheaded Anne Boleyn. "I don't know what this book is about," Enrigue writes at one point in Sudden Death. "It's not exactly about a tennis match. Nor is it a book about the slow and mysterious integration of America into what we call 'the Western world' — an outrageous misapprehension, since from the American perspective, Europe is the East. Maybe it's just a book about how to write this book; maybe that's what all books are about." One thing is for sure: his book is a postmodern delight.

One of T&C's most anticipated books for summer 2023, Sally Jacobs tells the story of tennis trailblazer Althea Gibson in this remarkable biography. Gibson was the first Black player to win a Grand Slam title (she would go on to win 11), and she would pave the way for generations of players, like Serena Williams and Sloane Stephens. Also, after she retired from tennis, she became the first Black player on the Women's Professional Golf Tour. No big deal.

No tennis book list is complete without David Foster Wallace. As he famously wrote, "I submit that tennis is the most beautiful sport there is, and also the most demanding." This five-essay collection features his best writing on the sport, including one piece on Roger Federer, one on Tracy Austin, and one on the US Open in 1995.

Serena Williams is the undisputed Greatest of All Time in tennis. Though she retired last year, her impact on the sport will be felt for generations to come. Gerald Mazorati's biography focuses in on two years of her career: her return to the sport after nearly dying giving birth to her daughter, through the 2020 season that took place on the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests. "It is Serena Williams's complexity, even beyond her greatness on court, that has made her the most consequential athlete of her time, and it is my hope that this book, in its way of telling, evokes and somehow deepens that complexity," Mazorati writes.

"Before Federer versus Nadal, before Borg versus McEnroe, the greatest tennis match ever played pitted the dominant Don Budge against the seductively handsome Baron Gottfried von Cramm..." I mean, from that tease from the publisher alone, don't you want to read A Terrible Splendor? This history book details a 1937 Davis Cup five set match at Wimbledon between an American and a German. Marshall Jon Fisher expertly weaves the match with their careers and the backdrop of the imminent world war.

Raymound Arsenault's definitive biography of Arthur Ashe clocks in at 629 pages—an exhaustive look at the tennis champion's life, politics, and legacy. If you've ever watched the US Open but don't know the story behind the Arthur Ashe Stadium, do yourself a favor and dive into this book. It's worth your time.

In 40 Love (originally published as The Tennis Party), four social-climbing British couples gather for a friendly weekend of tennis. What results is a comedy of manners featuring betrayal, scandal, secrets, and a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of competition. You may know author Madeleine Wickham from her Shopaholic series (under pseudonym Sophie Kinsella), and this 1995 novel is her debut (it was republished in 2011). It's a downright blast.

This fall marks the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Sexes, a 1973 match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King that was one of the most-watched sporting events of all time. (It was later dramatized in a film starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell as King and Riggs.) Selena Roberts, New York Times sports columnist, documents how not just the Battle of the Sexes itself, but how the spectacle changed sports for women, focusing in on the Title IX movement.

And while we're thinking about 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Sexes, and the state of women's tennis in general, Billie Jean King's autobiography All In is a necessary read. Written with with Johnette Howard and Maryanne Vollers, King details her childhood, career, and her journey into feminist activism. As the New York Times notes in its review, "it's hard not to read this book as a call to arms."

We are just obsessed with the gossipy origin of this novel: author Rita Mae Brown, feminist writer, dated tennis player Martina Navratilova. But when their relationship surfaced in the press, Navratilova broke things off. "She just walked out on me," Brown recounts. Their love story formed the clear inspiration for Brown's novel, Sudden Death, about women's professional tennis and fictional player Carmen and her lover, a professor named Harriet.

Lauren Weisberger, who wrote The Devil Wears Prada and When Life Gives You Lululemons, turns her sharp eye to the world of tennis. The Singles Game follows American tennis sweetheart Charlie and brutal coach Todd. An entertaining tennis tale that makes ideal beach read.

Federer and Me is a memoir about sports fandom. As the publisher writes, "For much of the past decade, William Skidelsky has had an obsessive devotion to Roger Federer, whom he considers to be the greatest and most graceful tennis player of all time." Skidelsky's obsession with Federer becomes the lens to explore modern tennis and the psychology of fandom—and it's a thoughtful and fascinating read.

Poet Rowan Ricardo Phillips tells the story of the 2017 men's tennis season, beginning with the Qatar Open final between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray and ending with Grigor Dimitrov's triumph at the ATP Finals in London. It's a real love letter to the sport, warts and all.

Last but certainly not least, John McPhee's account of the 1968 US Open semifinal match between Clark Graebner and Arthur Ashe is a classic in tennis nonfiction for a reason. Interweaving play-by-play of the match and backgrounds of Graebner and Ashe, The New York Times wrote "This may be the high point of American sports journalism."

Emily Burack (she/her) is the news writer for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.

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