The Racket: On Tour with Tennis’s Golden Generation – and the other 99%

When Conor Niland was 16, he got the chance to hit with Serena Williams at Nick Bollettieri’s famed tennis academy. Conor, the Irish junior number one, was feeling a bit homesick. Serena, also 16, already owned her own house beside the academy.

Conor Niland knows what it’s like when Roger Federer walks into the dressing room (‘Ciao, bonjour, hello!’), and he has had the exquisitely terrible experience of facing Novak Djokovic in the world’s biggest tennis stadium – while suffering from food poisoning. But he never reached the very top.

The Racket is the story of pro tennis’s 99%: the players who roam the globe in hope of climbing the rankings and squeaking into the Grand Slam tournaments. It brings us into a world where a few dozen super-rich players – travelling with coaches and physios – share a stage with lonely touring pros whose earnings barely cover their expenses. Painting a vivid picture of the social dynamics on tour, the economics of the game, and the shadows cast by gambling and doping, The Racket is a witty and revealing underdog’s memoir and a unique look inside a fascinating hidden world.

‘Well worth a read if you want the inside track on life on the lower rungs of the tennis circuit. Warts and all.’ Judy Murray

‘As elegant and powerful as a Federer backhand … It’s Kitchen Confidential for tennis.’ Ed Caesar

‘A really wonderful read … Conor Niland has delivered an all-timer for tennis and sports journalism’ Ashlee Vance

‘Conor Niland may only have managed a career-high ranking of 129 – only? that is some achievement in itself! – but The Racket, his account of how he managed this, is up there with the best half-dozen books on tennis ever written.’ Geoff Dyer

‘Genuinely such a brilliant book, a brilliant read’ Ciarán Murphy, Second Captains Podcast

‘One of the best Irish sports books of the last decade’ Kieran Shannon, Irish Examiner

‘If it’s not a contender for Sports Book of the Year, the world has gone mad.’ Fionn Davenport, Off The Ball