[hingis-seles]

Hey!

A family member is going to be leaving for Canada next week. I'm asking her to bring me "Total Tennis:The Ultimate Tennis Encyclopedia" by Bud Collins which was recently released. I wanted to ask if it's available in book stores in Canada at the moment. Chapters or Indigo? I do not have any other Bud Collins encyclopedia's, so I really want to read this one. I wanted to hear about it, from people who might have read it or bought it.

Thanks in advance.

I was also wondering what the name of the book was which had descriptions of 20 greatest matches of the 20th century and who the author was?

 

[bwguy]

chapters.indigo does offer it through its website, but that doesn't guarantee it will be available in stores.

I have the latest update as well as the 1997 version. The new revision is a whopping 938 pages (up from 698 since 1997), I hope your friend has a good back. Contents include sections devoted to different eras (1874-1945, 1946-1967 and 1968-2002). Those sections include breakout chapters on stars of the past and present such as Bill Tilden, Althea Gibson, Rod Laver, the "Four Queens" (King, Court, Evert, Goolagong), and the Williams sisters. In the next section you will find chapters devoted to the 4 major championships, followed by sections titled "International Play" (Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Olympics, etc.), "Biographies" which are about 1-page summaries of the achievements of notable players and other contenders, "The Registers" which provide yearly records for notable players, and the "Appendix" which details information regarding the Hall of Fame, rankings, the associations (ATP/WTA), World Team Tennis and more.

My only regret is that the new version does not contain an index (unless it's hiding in those 1000 pages!). But this is the only tennis history volume of consequence.

 

[hingis-seles]

Wow! Thanks for the info.

 

[bwguy]

For the greatest matches, you might be thinking of Steve Flink's book, The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, published in 1999. It's currently out of print, but you could probably pick it up used. It ranks 25 greatest matches.

Along the same lines, a good read is Bud Collin's article (not book) titled "Making a Racket". Here's a link to it: http://tennis.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://search.boston.com/yir/sports/tennis.htm

 

[hingis-seles]

Thanks again!

 

[hingis-seles]

*bump*

Any suggestions for some good tennis books?