!58108773 The book club returns this week, as freelance tennis writer Kamakshi Tandon and I talk about Patrick McEnroe's "Hardcourt Confidential," written with Tennis Magazine's Peter Bodo.
Kamakshi,
“The smaller the ball, the better the writing.” That was George Plimpton’s theory of sports journalism, anyway. There’s a snobbish ring to the phrase, which isn’t surprising considering the source. And I’m not sure it’s technically true. I haven’t read a whole lot of memorable ping-pong literature, have you?
But, relatively speaking, tennis uses a small ball, and it has produced some great writing, journalists and observers who stand with the best—Deford, Forbes, Bodo, Rex Bellamy. What it seems to do as well as any other sport these days, though, is the memoir, both from its stars and its second-tier players. In the past few years, we’ve had Andre Agassi’s confessional blockbuster, James Blake’s personal history, Vince Spadea’s edgy tour diary, and now Hardcourt Confidential. For a niche sport, that seems like a pretty high story output.
McEnroe’s stories mix the personal with the observational; the most memorable feature him as a witness to the whims and quirks of the more talented players around him. McEnroe and his ghostwriter, Pete Bodo, chose to build it as a series of non-chronological vignettes, which was a smart move. It gives the book a breezy feel; you aren’t forced, the way you are with the standard autobiography, to slog through his early days before you get to the “confidential” stuff. This approach also fits with the youngest McEnroe’s personality, which has always been to play the friendly, rational kid brother to the more self-absorbed genius of Johnny Mac.
Speaking of Pete, knowing him far better than I know Patrick, I can see a lot of his worldview in these pages. For example: The ATP’s Cincinnati tournament inspires this musing about Europeans' misapprehension of Midwestern values: “They don’t understand how we actually like a plain, comfortable life, even if it lacks many of the cultural amenities they’re used to.” Contrast that with a description of the Monte Carlo event: “The Monte Carlo Country Club is an enclave of the rich, royal, and powerful. Patrons and club members regularly have lunch on the terrace while watching the players—or is that peons?—grunting and sweating on the main stadium court.” Remind you of anyone?
It’s hardly a surprise that there would be a lot of Pete in the book—he wrote the sentences, and he and Patrick share a down-to-earth sensibility. Pete also brings his biggest strength, that is, his perceptiveness about people’s characters, and the ways those characters can be contradictory. Early on, McEnroe’s doubles partner, Richey Reneberg, is described as a “calm, nice guy who had a rebellious streak,” someone who, under his friendly veneer, liked to invent nicknames for his opponents. It took Patrick's memory and Pete's storytelling skill to put that mini-portrait of Reneberg together.
From there Patrick and Pete move on to the bigger fish—Sampras, Agassi, Blake, Roddick, etc. These stories will be the highlight of the book for most fans, and Patrick, while respectful as always, isn’t afraid to shed a little negative, human light on each star.
He says that one part of Sampras enjoys being a jerk, a hard a---. He’s had to learn to say no to people, and he’s come to relish the role a little. We knew he was cheap, but I don’t think I understood how deep that streak ran until I read McEnroe’s story about how Sampras, when they were teammates at the Word Team Cup one year, called Patrick afterward, claiming he had “gotten too much money” for what he'd contributed.
But the best section of the book belongs to Agassi, and how he helped wreck the U.S. Davis Cup team’s camaraderie and mojo during their loss to Croatia in 2005. Agassi, high maintenance, high-strung, and controlling, hates the courts Patrick has selected. (“I can’t get any progress!” he shouts to his coach, Darren Cahill; meaning, in Agassi-speak, that he can’t get the ball to penetrate.) He comes unglued in his loss to Ljubicic and screams in agony at Cahill. He insists on ordering for everyone at dinner and having a lengthy group wine tasting at the table, while the rest of the team, who are essentially college kids, just wants to get the hell out of there. And he rides Bob Bryan so hard about his actress girlfriend (“when are you going to dump that actress chick?”) that Bob loses confidence on court, he and his brother go down in the doubles, and Croatia walks away with the upset.
While the book isn't exactly a "confidential" in the sexy sense—though we do learn that Patrick had a fling with a swimsuit model in Paris (nice work!)—the Sampras and Agassi stuff is worth the price of admission. Patrick, through Pete, plays the role of the normal guy who has to deal with the quirks of genius. He’s the right guy for this job, since he’s had to learn to live with the quirkiest tennis genius of all, his older brother. Still, what he’s willing to reveal about that brother seems to have its limits. I was ready for more crazy, and maybe ugly, Johnny Mac stories, and also for some insight into the difficulties that must come with living in such a colossal sibling shadow. Patrick does acknowledge being called, insultingly, a “professional brother” at one point, but we don’t get much soul-searching on the subject. That’s not the book he chose to write, and it’s really not his or Pete’s style.
The most vivid McEnroes are the parents. John Sr., drives both of his boys crazy with his mania for family, and for tennis. A child of Irish immigrants, he became a partner at a prestigious New York law firm and built a family compound on Long Island—he’s the Joe Kennedy of tennis, and his pride in his boys’ accomplishments is touching. But it’s Kay, Patrick’s mother, who seems to have had the more lasting influence on her youngest son. She labelled him a “plugger” when he was a kid—he wasn't overly talented, but he kept pushing. Patrick seems to have lived that concept of himself out every day of his life. And it's worked: It's given him the level-headed perspective needed to live inside his brother's shadow, and make the most of it.
OK, Kamakshi, I know you were enjoying this book as you read it. Was there anything that surprised you, about Patrick or the people he describes? Was it confidential enough for you?
Steve