This week, in the first installment of our monthly book club, I'm talking with Kamakshi Tandon, the editor of TENNIS.com, about Gordon Forbes' 1996 memoir "Too Soon to Panic."
Kamakshi,
Reading Forbes and Federer back to back, I find it almost impossible to connect the amateur era with today’s game. Even the basic philosophy and way of life of the amateurs is tough to comprehend today—what were these men in their 20s and 30s playing for, if there was no money in the game? Of course, they were playing to compete, to do what they loved, to travel, to be with friends. Maybe that’s why they could produce someone like Forbes, such a keen, thoughtful observer, because they had to love it to do it back then. What do you think the chances are that the pros of today will include someone who can write like Forbes? Even Dmitry pales.
Federer’s mother is South African, as is Forbes. But that’s about all they have in common as far as lifestyle. In Panic, Forbes describes how the players of his day were often taken up and befriended by rich men who loved sports. For Forbes and Abe Segal, it was South Africa’s Sol Kerzner, a mogul (Abie forever mispronounced it “mongol”) who gave them rides on his jet and let them stay at his mega-resort, the notorious Sun City. Compare that to Federer, who travels to South Africa for his own charity and is himself a UNICEF goodwill ambassador!
But you’re right, they do have food in common. I’m always amazed at the way professional tennis players talk about their bodies as if they’re machines or engines. For the most dedicated among them, everything they do, every day, is about keeping those engines properly tuned. If they miss this meal or that practice, it can throw their whole day off.
They also seem to judge the various countries they visit by the food they eat. It’s their primary experience of the world. Federer talks about sushi above all else in Japan, while Forbes says that New York remains a mystery to him because there’s such a massive variety of food available. Here are his diary notes for New York, 1995, from Panic:
At the Oyster Bar at Grand Central you might have the grilled mackerel and at Smith and Wollensky on 49th St. you might have the prime New York rib, and they’d be quite different but both essentially Manhattan. Carveries, dineries, beaneries! You could spend a lifetime eating in this city and you would still leave almost everything untried—would still be searching for that elusive dish that would enable you to say, “This is the one! This is at last New York City!”
You say Federer is surprisingly “textured” for a top athlete, Kamakshi, and I think that’s right. One of those surprising textures is his innocence—he’s pretty guileless for someone who makes his living by competing (Nadal, by comparison, strikes me as innocent but also cagey). Fed’s blog is fun to read because he’s disarmingly honest, as we know from his description of the toilet at his hotel, and utterly matter of fact about what must be a rather unbelievable existence for him right now:
Mirka did not come to dinner last night so I brought her back some take away sushi. She was afraid to eat it as she thought ‘Captain Wasabi’ would hit again but I never play the same joke twice. And she hasn’t had her revenge yet, so I need to watch out…
Before dinner I had a reception in town as I was presented with the Baccarat Athlete of the Year award for 2006. I also did a photo shoot for the cover of the AERA magazine, which is like the Time or Newsweek in Japan.
Quite a segueway, huh? Wasabi prank, athlete of the year award, Time Magazine cover, it’s all good.
My favorite Forbes moments, you were wondering. Well, I look forward to his cast of characters more than anything; his anecdotes flow from them. He sees what’s unique about people and doesn’t turn them into the caricatures he may want them to be, which is a pitfall of some talented, over-opinionated writers when they do biographical sketches—if you believe Tom Wolfe, the pilot Chuck Yeager, the stock-car driver Junior Johnson, and the acid-guru Ken Kesey are basically the same person. Forbes, rather, shows how an individual sport attracts just that, individuals.
In Panic, we revisit the Danish philosopher-player Torben Ulrich (father of Metallica drummer Lars).
I see, as if it were yesterday, Torben walking on the court at Wimbledon to play a very and eager Tony Roche; Tony getting ready to spin his racquet, saying, “Would you like to call, Mr. Ulrich?” And Torben saying, “You know, Tony, they say you have a very beautiful service. I would like very much to see it, so why don’t you serve first?"—and really meaning what he says!
But it’s not all clowning in these stories; there’s depth, too. There's another one about Ulrich on the next page, after they’ve just watched a jazz show. Ulrich, who was a musician and music critic as well, has been taking notes.
*“What do you write, Torben?” I ask him.
“Some things, you know, some sounds, like these cannot be written. This, you see, is life, and when you try to write of life it moves away, it moves away, to some other place.”*
Every writer knows the feeling.
We also get another glimpse of Art Larsen, an American who won the U.S. Championships and who was widely considered one of the most uniquely talented, and weirdest, players in history. He would typically talk to spectators in the middle of points, letting them know the shot he was going to play next. In Panic, Larsen arrives in Rome straight off a plane from New York and walks onto a court next to Segal for his first-round match. He sees who Segal is playing and tells Abe to watch how he plays his own match, because he’s going to show Abe how to beat his opponent. And he does, instructing Segal even as he’s running his guy around the court. Of course, Segal is distracted, loses, and bellows that Larsen "isn't just weird, he's crazy!"
One new character we meet this time around is the late Mark McCormack, the original sports agent and head of IMG. Forbes isolates what makes McCormack, well, McCormack.
Mark is two separate people—one of them a man who knows the value of good friends, and who delights like other men in simple things, a funny joke, a perfect passing shot. The other Mark lives in a world entirely his own. No one knows what thoughts and inclinations occupy that world, or what it is, when he gets there, that he thinks about or yearns for. To enter such a world you must find one of your own. Only singular men possess these private worlds.
Best of all, we get a look at Lew Hoad, the great Australian champion, hanging out at Wimbledon’s Last Eight Club.
He always chose to base himself at the little bar, beer mug in hand, with one eye on the tennis and the other half-closed against the smoke of a cigarette—on his face the quizzical, half-surprised frown he used to wear nearly all the time. He liked to have a friend beside him, but there did not have to be a conversation. In his later years he had a beat-up look, as though ravaged by a life that had somehow seemed to puzzle him.
While he played Lew was invincible—a quiet man who never spoke a word about himself, who never complained, who scorned cheating, who respected the game he loved and those who tried their best to play it, and who was able to play, without fuss or effort, the most harmonious, majestic, and creative tennis of all time. Ask any of the players of his era, they will want to tell you, but become silent, searching for words. The memory of Lew Hoad is, in a way, the private property of those who knew him well, and as such they tend to keep it for themselves.
Lew is sitting next to Abie, conversing in monosylllables and grumbling to himself about the inefficiency of Jimmy Connors' service. "Would you look at that," he growls, "A bloody great swing, a bloody great grunt, and out pops a mouse!"
“Who was able to play, without fuss or effort, the most harmonious, majestic, and creative tennis of all time.” Remind you of anyone from today’s game? I hope Mr. Fed finds a chronicler who can do him half the justice Forbes does to Hoad.
One question, Kamakshi: We’ve talked Forbes up sufficiently, I think. Does he have any flaws, in your opinion?
Steve