Recommend Some Good Books on Tennis

P

pierpont

Guest
Hi. Could someone recommend some good books covering technique, strategy, and fitness? Thanks.
 

TommyGun

Semi-Pro
1. Match Play and the Spin of the Ball, William T. Tilden II. Still the best book ever written on the game.

2. Play Tennis in Two Hours and Play Better Tennis in Two Hours, Oscar Wegner. Makes the game so simple you wonder why it took so long to learn it.

3. Winning Ugly, Brad Gilbert. If you don't read this, you should be ashamed. This is about winning, not just playing.

4. World Class Tennis Technique, I forget who wrote it. Good breakdown of some of the best strokes ever.

5. Nick Bollettieri's Classic Tennis Handbook, Nick Bollettieri, et al. Forget any of the sections on tennis, go directly to Tom Parry's section on racquets and string. IMHO, everything else in the book is, well, fluff.

6. Inner Tennis, Timothy Gallway. Its a little old, but it is a different approach to tennis that you can add to your learning.

7. Kings of the Court, VHS/DVD. Great footage of the all-time greats, comes with additional footage that is just great for instructional purposes.

8. McEnroe vs. Borg, Wimbledon, 1979. Worth everything for just the tie-breaker alone. You can learn a lot about point construction and strategy from two players who have completely different styles.

Hope this helps. My recommendations...
 

Exile

Professional
How to play championship tennis by rod laver
has good technique and fitness philosophy, its more like an autobiography but it still has good info in it.
Fine points of tennis by Paul Metzler
has a lot of strategy in it, contains grip diagrams, shot variations.
 

vin

Professional
Here are some of my favorites:

Coaching Tennis by Chuck Kriese
Maximum Tennis by Nick Saviano
World-Class Tennis Technique by Paul Roetert
Nick Bollettieri's Tennis Handbook
The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Galloway
 

gmlasam

Hall of Fame
Another excellent book that deals more on science/physics of tennis is "Tennis Science for Tennis Players" by Howard Brody.
 
S

Scheiner

Guest
TommyGun said:
3. Winning Ugly, Brad Gilbert. If you don't read this, you should be ashamed. This is about winning, not just playing.

Read it... and it is amazing. I highly recommend this book if your tennis is weak in the mental aspect.
 

joe sch

Legend
Tildens match play and spin of the ball is a classic that any player should read for technique and match smarts, along with Inner Tennis and Winning Ugly for psychological smarts. A recent offering on technique that is very timely for todays style is High Tech Tennis by Jack Groppel
 

Bungalo Bill

G.O.A.T.
Marius_Hancu said:
Serious Tennis, by Scott Williams.
Power Tennis Training, by Donald A. Chu

Yeah these are my favorites,

Serious Tennis is a complete tennis system

Power Tennis Training is very good

and Coaching Tennis mentioned by Vin are my favorites.
 

joehight

New User
No one has mentioned "Visual Tennis". Don't have the book with me and can't remember who wrote it, but it offers point by point descriptions along with accompanying photos of all the strokes. It's thesis is that many of us learn more readily from visual presentations and from having these mental pictures in our brains. I have found it helpful to go back to it on occasion in order to check on the mechanics of my strokes. It's stroke presentations are not infallible, or at least, not the only way to stroke, but it is useful nonetheless IMHO. It sells what it calls the "classic" style of stroking.
 

joe sch

Legend
Another excellent book from another HOF'er player, author and coach of champions is Pancho Seguras "Championship Strategy" 1976. This book is very hard to find but it a treasure if you can find it !
 

joehight

New User
If you want a good book on an account of running a pro tennis tournament for years get Jim Westhall's book "Nonsense at the Net." While use of the term "nonsense at the net" becomes a little contrived at times, all in all its a very good read. Probably a little more interesting to readers from New England in the U.S. than elsewhere, but I believe all who are interested in tennis will enjoy it. Get some history connected to Ron Laver late in his career as well, and Johnnie Mac and Jimbo Conners in their prime, and Andre as a teen sensation.
 

Geezer Guy

Hall of Fame
the Good Book

My favorites are:

Think To Win - by Allen Fox
Winning Ugly - by Brad Gilbert
Maximum Tennis - by Nick Saviano

and if you want to win at Doubles: The Art of Doubles - by Pat Blaskower

and finally, I get SOMETHING good out of almost every issue of Tennis magazine.
 

atatu

Legend
Maximum Tennis is my favorite along with Winning Ugly. If you want to read an accounty of what it was like to play the tour back in the day, read A Handful of Summers by Gordon Forbes.
 
All solid choices previously mentioned.

Especially "S-natch Play and the Spin of the Defense in a Child Molestation Trial" by bIlL tIlDeN

Seriously, a GREAT read is "Levels of the Game" by John McPhee. A tennis classic!!
 

TommyGun

Semi-Pro
Hey, we're not proud that maybe the greatest America player ever had "questionable" life choices, but darn, he did know tennis.

Think about it. In his 40's he was only 9-10 against Ellsworth Vines who was reigning champ and in his 20's. At the age of 50 he was seeded in the US Pro championships before he died.

I have been accumulating video of him, and I have to say that he really did have mastery of all the strokes and knew how to exploit all of an opponents weaknesses.
 
Tommy Gun: Point taken. I don't for a minute contest the fact that Tilden's book is a must-read. I was just "playing" with Bill. Heck, I have a copy (and have read it a number of times) myself.

"Levels of the Game" (John McPhee); I really suggest it -- a good read.
 

kevhen

Hall of Fame
Books I liked and what I learned from them:

Win Ugly- Brad Gilbert (Pay attention to your opponent's weaknesses rather than becoming so self-absorbed in your own game)

Maximum Tennis - Nick Saviano

Doubles book with Williams sisters on the cover by Stan Smith

Those 3 stand out in my mind as the best from about 20 tennis books I have.

Pressure Tennis by Paul Wardlaw discussing directionals (Don't change the direction on the ball unless you get a short ball in the middle of the court)

NTRP book that describes each level and gives some advice and drills to get to next level

These are good books too.
 

JohnThomas1

Professional
I've read em all and another good one is Tennis 2000 by Vic Braden. Just bought a second copy so my g/f has her own. Some great information that also allows you to expand onto more modern practices where needed. Provides a really good base. A bit rare now is the problem. Nicks handbook has a lot of filler but there are some genuine gems in there, believe you me. To be honest, Bungalo Bill in here gives as good a info on tennis strokes as you are ever going to see. Annacone and Teltcher write some great stuff for tennis mag too. If you search their websites instruction articles you will find some awesome reading, especially Lansdorps.
 

paulfreda

Hall of Fame
Tennis must reading

joe sch said:
Another excellent book from another HOF'er player, author and coach of champions is Pancho Seguras "Championship Strategy" 1976. This book is very hard to find but it a treasure if you can find it !

Yes, this is my favorite book.
I actually have 2 copies, but they are in storage back in the US.
It is a bit dated in some sections now, but the checklists are outstanding
sources for thoughts on improvement.

Tommy's list at top is wonderful.

Inner Tennis by Tim Gallway is a absolute classic.
 
One of my favorites is tennis books is "Tennis Tactics". It's not a lot of reading but there is a lot of diagrams about setting up the court and exploiting your opponet's weakness. It was written by serveral USTA coaches and staff members.
 

papa

Hall of Fame
Well at least someone mentioned "Visual Tennis" in the tread. It was written by John Yandell who I believe went to Stanford - maybe he went to graduate school there but he had some connection with Dick Gould. Yandell's stuff is always good.
 

Bungalo Bill

G.O.A.T.
joehight said:
No one has mentioned "Visual Tennis". Don't have the book with me and can't remember who wrote it, but it offers point by point descriptions along with accompanying photos of all the strokes. It's thesis is that many of us learn more readily from visual presentations and from having these mental pictures in our brains. I have found it helpful to go back to it on occasion in order to check on the mechanics of my strokes. It's stroke presentations are not infallible, or at least, not the only way to stroke, but it is useful nonetheless IMHO. It sells what it calls the "classic" style of stroking.

Visual Tennis is an excellent book! It is written by John Yandell.
 

joe sch

Legend
TommyGun said:
Kings of the Court, VHS/DVD. Great footage of the all-time greats, comes with additional footage that is just great for instructional purposes.
TommyGun, can you tell me a little more about the additional footage ? I have this video but have not seen the extra footage. Did it come on an extra media ? Are the instructions given by some of the court kings, like Kramer or Riggs ?
 
G

Gary Britt

Guest
TommyGun said:
Hey, we're not proud that maybe the greatest America player ever had "questionable" life choices, but darn, he did know tennis.

Questionable? He was by today's standards a serial rapist, sexual predator, and pedophile. That's pretty questionable OK.

Telling like it is about his criminal predatory behavior does not however take away from the fact that for his day he was a great player. I'd love to watch video's of him playing just to see what all the fuss was about, but if asked about his character I wouldn't hestitate to say a lot more about him than it was questionable.

Gary
 
G

Gary Britt

Guest
Dedans Penthouse said:
Tommy Gun: Point taken. I don't for a minute contest the fact that Tilden's book is a must-read. I was just "playing" with Bill. Heck, I have a copy (and have read it a number of times) myself.

"Levels of the Game" (John McPhee); I really suggest it -- a good read.

I used to own a copy of Tilden's book. I lost it many years ago after reading it. I don't remember anything from the book, and I have a good memory. The only memory I have, which is the same I've always had, is that I didn't think it was a very good book. To me, it completely lacked any significant instructional material, and contained only one or two items of any noteworthy consequence. The principal one being how he would play to his opponents strength to open up their weakness.

My personal opinion is that at the time the book was written it was leaps and bounds over other tennis books (which means the other books must have really really sucked) and as a result got this big buzz in the tennis world. However, by any modern (Post 1960) standard the book wasn't worth buying, except possibly for a historical/literary interest.

Just my opinion.

Gary
 
Top