Strokes of genius

Federer, Nadal, and the greatest match ever played

by Wertheim, L. Jon

Boston · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt · 2009

In the 2008 Wimbledon men's final, Centre Court was a stage set worthy of Shakespearean drama. Five-time champion Roger Federer was on track to take his rightful place as the most dominant player in the history of the game. Yet in the last few moments of daylight, swashbuckling Spaniard Rafael Nadal prevailed in what was, according to the author, "essentially a four-hour, forty-eight-minute infomercial for everything that is right about tennis." This book deconstructs this defining moment in sport, using that match as the backbone of a provocative, thoughtful, and entertaining look at the science, art, psychology, technology, strategy, and personality that go into a single tennis match. With vivid, intimate detail, Wertheim re-creates this epic battle in a book that is both a study of the mechanics and art of the game and the portrait of a dramatic rivalry.--From publisher description.