The five essays contained in the cleverly titled 鈥淪tring Theory鈥� bring together some of best tennis writing since John McPhee鈥檚 classic short work, 鈥淟evels of the Game,鈥� about a single match at the 1968 US Open. Wallace鈥檚 essays include a study of Roger Federer鈥檚 transcendent shotmaking, the commercial drumbeat at the US Open, and a witty take on Tracy Austin鈥檚 memoir. Wallace was once a promising junior player who found his true calling as a writer. In 2012, his unfinished novel 鈥淭he Pale King鈥� (he committed suicide in 2008) was posthumously selected as a finalist for that year鈥檚 Pulitzer Prize in fiction.
Here鈥檚 an excerpt from String Theory:
鈥淕oing to a major ATP tournament is like a cross between going to a major-league ball game and going to the fair. You can buy a Grounds Pass and wander from match to match, sampling the fare. You can also buy specific expensive tickets for big-name matches in the Stadium and Grandstand. In the early rounds, these headline matches tend to feature the high seeds and household names 鈥� Agassi, Sampras, Chang 鈥� against main draw also-rans like Jacob Hlasek.
鈥淏eing a tennis spectator is different from being at a baseball game, though. Whether crowd-noise or -movement is any more distracting to someone getting ready to serve than it is to someone getting ready to shoot a free throw, players and tournaments act like it is, and play itself is supposed to be conducted in as close to funereal silence as possible.鈥�
