The Circuit

August 13, 2018
Poet and tennis fan Phillips (Heaven) serves an exciting account of the 2017 men’s tennis season, detailing the games, sets, and matches as he follows the players from the Australian Open in January to the U.S. Open in August and September. At center court stand Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, who by the end of the season are ranked #1 and #2 in the world, respectively. Phillips then introduces a cast of challengers, including Andy Murray, who started the year ranked #1 with his “lighting quick two-handed backhand,” though his promise early in the season was cut short by injuries. David Goffin, whom Nadal finishes off in straight sets in Monte Carlo on a clay court, is a technician with an attractive game whose backhand, “even when he makes an error with it,” is perfect, according to Phillips. By the time the U.S. Open rolls around, Federer has moved up in the rankings from #17 to #3, leaving tennis fans eagerly anticipating a possible finals match between him and top-ranked Nadal, his longtime rival. Phillips energetically illustrates the fascination “to watch someone lose something that no one among the thousands or millions could see but all could feel” and the tactics players use. Phillips’s enthusiastic recollection of the 2017 season will enthrall tennis fans.

September 1, 2018
The Paris Review sports columnist follows a nail-biting tour of men's professional tennis.For award-winning poet Phillips (Heaven: Poems, 2015, etc.), tennis became a "private joy" even after he stopped playing." That sense of joy imbues his vivid recounting of one historic, emotionally roiling year: the 2017 Association of Tennis Professionals Tour. The author begins in Australia, where the first tournament of the year occurs in Brisbane on Jan. 1, in the summer heat. At that point, the two top-ranked players were Britain's Andy Murray and Serbia's Novak Djokovic, competitors, the author observes, who seem to be "heralds of tennis's new form of dominance: sadistic resilience and rugged precision." Meanwhile, "the best two players on the planet," were Rafael Nadal, ranked 9, and Roger Federer, 16. Despite a short explanation about scoring and a 20-page glossary of terms, readers who don't know a bagel ("to be winning or have won no games in a set") from a breadstick ("to be winning or have won only one game in a set") may be challenged to follow some descriptions of particular matches and the variables involved in players' rankings, which "position players in a tournament like pieces on a chessboard," indicating who gets to compete in qualifiers and where a player is arranged within the tournament draw. Nevertheless, Phillips conveys the relentless tension of a game where "one step in the wrong direction in the middle of one point can cause an avalanche that sweeps away any advantage, no matter its size." Throughout the winter, Federer and Nadal crept up in rankings, and spring heralded tournaments around the world on clay courts, distinguished from other surfaces "in its erratic effects. Clay forces a player's body to adapt or fail, a player's mind to obey or die." By fall, competitors' face-offs, injuries, and brilliant strategies had eroded the "air of inevitability around the Murray-Djokovic rivalry" and led to an astonishing outcome.A treat for avid tennis fans.

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October 1, 2018
The award-winning poet, Paris Review sports columnist, and rabid tennis fan followed the entire 2017 men's tennis season (the ATP World Tour), either in person or via live streaming, and invites readers along as he explores the dramatic rise and fall of the top male contenders on their journey across the globe through minor tournaments and Grand Slam events. Written in lyrical prose with occasional references to visual arts (Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son; Lavery's Tennis under the Orange Trees, Cannes), Phillips' account is refreshingly analytical and observant of various nuances and tactics of the game, which he sees as a contest of deception and surprise. He covers the thrilling matches of familiar names like Andy Murray, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal, plus lesser-known players, including Belgium's David Goffin and temperamental Nick Kyrgios from Australia. There are also discursive interludes on such matters as the history of clay courts. Seasoned tennis players and avid fans will enjoy reliving this year in the sport from the perspective of an astute observer .(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2018

Poet and sports columnist Phillips (Heaven) takes readers on an armchair excursion of the men's professional tennis tour, writing passionately about the charming nuances and maddening intricacies of the game. While he only attends two tournaments in person{amp}mdash;Indian Wells in March and the U.S. Open in September{amp}mdash;he obsessively watches nearly every tournament of the 2017 season on TV. The author describes how 2017 was a unique year in the sport as the old masters, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, reasserted themselves as two of the best players in the world. Rowan points out that professional tennis finds its practitioners laboring from January through November on various surfaces and constantly changing conditions. While Phillips focuses on these main players, it's his attention to those lesser-known, such as David Goffin, that marks this work as something special; he shows how the difference between good and great players is tragically minute. VERDICT Like the lure of the Siren's song, this captivating work willingly draws any tennis acolyte toward its story with enthusiastic abandon. [See Prepub Alert, 6/21/18.]{amp}mdash;Brian Renvall, Mesalands Community Coll., Tucumcari, NM

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2018

Who better than a multi-award-winning poet, and one writing graceful and disciplined verse at that, to cover the 2017 tennis season and show us that tennis is not a politely reserved sport but one in which we are edgily engaged? Phillips is also the Paris Review sports columnist, so he knows his stuff.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.