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Tennis Confidential II: More of Today's Greatest Players, Matches, and Controversies | 
 enlarge | Author: Paul Fein
Creator: Mary Carillo
Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
Buy New: $17.92
You Save: $9.58 (35%)
New (23) Used (6) from $16.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 454644
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.8 x 6.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 1597971731
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.3420922
EAN: 9781597971737
ASIN: 1597971731
Publication Date: April 28, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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Product Description
Award-winning tennis writer Paul Fein is back at his shot-making best with Tennis Confidential II: More of Today’s Greatest Players, Matches, and Controversies. Tennis keeps moving forward and so does Fein, giving readers his insightful and thoughtprovoking opinions on a myriad of hot-button topics.
Who is the greatest men’s player ever? The greatest women’s player ever? Is it clever or counter-productive to let players challenge line calls? How about oncourt coaching? Scoring system changes? The television networks and tennis’s ruling bodies fervently push these controversial reforms, but do they help or hurt tennis? Fein questions and debunks conventional wisdom as only he can, and his in-depth knowledge and authoritative analyses of the sport provide a welcome perspective.
Fein writes about today’s headliners like Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, Andy Roddick, and the Williams sisters, plus popular former champions such as Andre Agassi, Yannick Noah, Jim Courier, Martina Hingis, and Stefan Edberg. He chronicles the exciting evolution of women’s tennis and its heroic pioneers, explains the near-extinction of the dynamic serve-and-volley game and how to save it, and revisits an unforgettable era when tennis players “rocked.”
This entertaining and compelling compendium of tennis interviews, features, and essays is sure to intrigue, inform, and enlighten. Anyone who enjoys reading about tennis will find Paul Fein’s Tennis Confidential II a winner.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
expand your tennis IQ with this read August 23, 2008
Tennis Confidential II provides a great window into all things tennis, covering a wide-range of tennis topics in a concise, entertaining manner.
This book has a bit of something for everyone, due to the breadth of the essays and interviews, and will likely satisfy readers whether they are serious tennis players/fans or simply general sports fans looking for an introduction to the sport.
As a youngish tennis enthusiast, who was introduced to the sport during the prime of the American "greatest generation"(Chang, Courier, Agassi, and Sampras), I especially enjoyed learning about players from previous generations that I was not aware of. Fein does an especially good job of tying these players of different generations together, connecting and comparing "old-time" and modern players seamlessly
The interviews that conclude this book are particularly strong. Fein has a knack for asking the right questions to his subjects that bring out their personalites. The interviews with the likes of Mats Wilander and Michael Chang (who I always perceived as being very bland) are fascinating.
Great book July 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an excellent book mixing current day tennis with tennis past, the light with the serious. Player profiles and background are quite interesting. His observation and points of view are well thought out and cogent with the exception of his infatuation with Pete Sampras. As much as I personally detest the stuff, to a lot of the world, playing tennis means playing on clay. Pete Sampras (like John McEnroe) was not an all time great all court player. Overall, a real FEIN book!
Lowdown on Tennis Confidential II July 11, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Paul Fein has done it again. He has written an excellent sequel to his earlier tennis books. This new book provides both an insightful history of the game of tennis, from its origins to the present, as well as in-depth interviews with many of the game's luminaries. He rates both men and women champions,giving impeccable reasoning for his choices. (The only quibble this reviewer has with the list of male champions is Fein's exclusion of Lew Hoad among the top ten.) Bringing his analysis right up to the present, Fein asks the questions of Roger Federer's place among the tennis greats. The author will have to write Tennis Confidential III to address the issue of Raphael Nadal's place in history after the latter's stunning victory over Federer in the Wimbledon 2008 finals.
Among the many fascinating topics in the book, Fein covers the skills peculiar to doubles and the incongruity of doubles which is favored by recreational players, but relegated far below singles by tournament directors. Another interesting point is Fein's comparison of tennis to golf. Tennis, he asserts, requires a much higher degree of athleticism (hand speed, reaction time, conditioning), as evidenced by the fact that tennis players such as Althea Gibson and Ellsworth Vines have been successful at golf, while no golfers have been successful at tennis at the highest levels. The book is replete with fascinating details on such subjects as the history and progress of women in tennis, the decline of the serve and volley game, feuds between players, and the direction that the U.S. must take to produce the game's elite, as it has in the past. Even tennis fanatics will wonder where Paul Fein got all of his information, including the priceless anecdote of Art Larsen,U.S. Open champion in 1950, being excluded from a tournament and then hiring a plane to create rain over the tennis courts as a way to gain revenge by forcing a rain-out.
Fein is quite strong in his opinions about the future direction of tennis (such as the use of tiebreakers and the place of doubles in the game). As a lifelong player and lover of tennis, Fein gives valuable tips on how to "fire up" the game such as bringing back serving and volleying, connecting players and fans more closely, and stopping the persistent stalling in major matches.
All in all, very highly recommended.
Superb June 7, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
In his inimitable style, Paul Fein analyzes the issues, arms himself with the facts, and then lets his opponents have it. Whether it's taking a sledgehammer to the misguided advocates of on-court coaching or exposing the flawed thinking that's given rise to the absurdity of player challenges, Fein made me feel like standing up and applauding.
As a coach, I found myself actually cheering when I read his enlightening chapter entitled "How America Can Produce Champions Again." I was fascinated to learn why "the best two-handed backhands are much superior to the best one-handed backhands," and why we should "ditch the flawed, open-stance, two handed backhand that Venus and Serena use regularly." This chapter alone should make the book required reading for any tennis coach with an interest in US junior tennis development.
However, what I liked most of all about the book is that Fein clarified my thinking on many of tennis' controversies. He takes seemingly grey issues, quickly separates the black from the white, and then presents well-reasoned arguments with a certainty that must leave some of tennis' "dogmatists for change" looking for the nearest sewer to slither back into.
On the other hand, if you're an advocate of introducing no-ad scoring, replacing deciding sets with tie-breakers, or sacrificing the integrity of the game to the mindless masses in the name of television and entertainment, whatever you do, don't buy this book. It'll be much too dangerous for your health.
A Grand Slam of a Book June 5, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Paul Fein is nothing short of a master. His latest book, Tennis Confidential II, will make you chuckle at times (don't miss the Fascinating Facts at the end of most chapters), it'll make you cry at others (What! Get rid of player challenges? Let's talk about that!), but most of all it will fire you up and make you consider--and re-consider-- the great tennis issues.
I especially enjoyed the chapter on Famous Feuds in Tennis History. Who knew that Renaissance painters even played tennis, let alone that one murdered his tennis opponent over a disputed score? I loved re-living those nasty McEnroe/Connors days. And, by the way, Anna Kournikova fairly drips acid. Oh, it's delicious!
Mostly, I learned a lot. Fein is as instructive as he is entertaining. I didn't know about the 13 factors that make line calling difficult. Even when I thought I understood an issue, Fein gave me more to think about. In my opinion, this book is one that will be enjoyed both by novices and seasoned players. You can check out stories about people who have changed the sport, Fein's list of top players of all time, and some intriguing ideas about how to fire up the game.
Fein says tennis players love to argue. Well . . . we agree on that!
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