{"product_id":"love-game-a-history-of-tennis-from-victorian-pastime-to-global-phenomenon-9780226371283","title":"Love Game: A History of Tennis  from Victorian Pastime to Global Phenomenon","description":"\u003cp\u003eTennis has never been played better than it is today. To watch Rafael Nadal spin a forehand at 4000 rpm  Maria Sharapova arabesque out of a serve  Serena Williams utterly destroy a short ball  or Roger Federer touch a volley into an impossibly angled winner is to watch not only the best players with the best coaching hitting with the best racquets  it is to watch the culmination of an entire history. Love Game is different from most tennis booksit isnt a ghostwritten biography  and it wont teach you how to slice your serve. Its a book about tenniss grand culture  one that unveils the sports long history as it lives and breathes (or grunts) in the modern game.  No one is better equipped to tell this story than novelist and historian Elizabeth Wilson. With a penchant for tenniss inherent drama  she finds its core: a psychological face off between flamboyant personalities navigating the ebbs and flows of fortune in the confines of a 78 x 36foot boxwhether of clay  grass  or DecoTurf. Walking the finely kempt lawns of Victorian England  she shows how tenniss early role as a social pastime that included both men and womenand thus  lots of sexual tensionset it apart from most other sports and their dominant masculine appeal. Even today  when power and endurance are more important than ever  tennis still demands that the body behave gracefully and with finesse. In this way  Wilson shows  tennis has retained the vibrant spectacle of human drama and beauty that have always made it special  not just to sports fans but to popular culture.  Telling the stories of all the greats  from the Renshaw brothers to Novak Djokovic  and of all the advances  from wooden racquets to network television schedules  Wilson offers a tennis book like no other  keeping the court square in our sights as history is illuminated around it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45646917500981,"sku":"ByrdShop_022637128X","price":25.06,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780226371283.jpg?v=1781681702","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/love-game-a-history-of-tennis-from-victorian-pastime-to-global-phenomenon-9780226371283","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}