The Racket
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  • Published: 6 June 2024
  • ISBN: 9781844886425
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320
Categories:

The Racket

On Tour with Tennis’s Golden Generation – and the other 99%

Formats & editions
Paperback
26 Aug 2025
Tr. Paperback
6 Jul 2024
EBook
6 Jun 2024
Audiobook
6 Jun 2024
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A contemporary of Federer, Nadal and the Williams sisters brings us inside the strange and fascinating world of pro tennis

When Conor Niland was 16, he got the chance to hit with Serena Williams at Nick Bollettieri's famed tennis academy. Conor, the Irish junior number one, was feeling a bit homesick. Serena, also 16, already owned her own house beside the academy.

Conor Niland knows what it's like when Roger Federer walks into the dressing room ('Ciao, bonjour, hello!'), and he has had the exquisitely terrible experience of facing Novak Djokovic in the world's biggest tennis stadium - while suffering from food poisoning. But he never reached the very top.

The Racket is the story of pro tennis's 99%: the players who roam the globe in hope of climbing the rankings and squeaking into the Grand Slam tournaments. It brings us into a world where a few dozen super-rich players - travelling with coaches and physios - share a stage with lonely touring pros whose earnings barely cover their expenses. Painting a vivid picture of the social dynamics on tour, the economics of the game, and the shadows cast by gambling and doping, The Racket is a witty and revealing underdog's memoir and a unique look inside a fascinating hidden world.
  • Published: 6 June 2024
  • ISBN: 9781844886425
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320
Categories:

Praise for The Racket

A really wonderful read ... Conor Niland has delivered an all-timer for tennis and sports journalism

Ashlee Vance

An honest and droll memoir from the top-ranked Irish male player of the Open Era to have spent his career "reliant on Tennis Ireland"

Laura Slattery, Irish Times

Blending a passion for his chosen sport with a realistic study of the traumas of the tour, The Racket offers a brilliant insight from Ireland’s greatest ever tennis player.

John Boyne

Brilliant book, I inhaled it

Jonathan Drennan, Sydney Morning Herald

Compelling

Tennis365.com

Genuinely such a brilliant book, a brilliant read

Ciarán Murphy, Second Captains

I ate this book up ... reveals the sacrifices, commitment and decidedly unglamorous side of life on the tennis circuit

Sinéad Moriarty

One of the best Irish sports books of the last decade

Kieran Shannon, Irish Examiner

This is terrific - devoured it in a day. If you want to understand life on the tennis tour at the level where you're your own manager, agent, coach, travel agent, physio, and trainer, this is the one. I've read many tennis autobiographies: this is one of the very best

Charles Arthur

This will rightly join the list of The Best Irish Sports Books Ever Written. A superb insight into professional tennis from the ground up.

Paul Howard

Thoroughly enjoying this engrossing read; sure to become a must read of the tennis literature canon

Paul Perry

Unsparing in his depiction of the drudgery of tennis

Mike Jakeman, The Spectator

Well worth a read if you want the inside track on life on the lower rungs of the tennis circuit. Warts and all.

Judy Murray

Witty and insightful … an homage to the game he clearly still loves

Anna Carey, Irish Times
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