Name: String Theory
Rating: 3.7 (58 reviews)
Author: David Foster Wallace

What’s in it for me? Get into the mind of a professional tennis player.

What is going on in the minds of those physical savants during a match at Wimbledon? And what does it take to get there? If you’ve ever wondered such things, join the crowd – there’s a whole world of competitive tennis that is intensely cutthroat, and only the best of the best make it onto our TV screens.

It might surprise you, but the esteemed writer David Foster Wallace was once an active participant in that world. In these blinks, we’ll get an insider’s look at this rarefied domain from one of the most beloved literary minds of our time.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how sweating might benefit your tennis game;
how Federer perceives a ball on the court; and
why sports memoirs are usually so dull.

David Foster Wallace served up more than fine prose.

David Foster Wallace is known as one of the most talented authors in modern American fiction. But his career could have easily gone another way. Wallace actually started out as a competitively ranked junior tennis player. The other kids even gave him a nickname, Slug, as a sort of backhanded compliment. He was lazy and slow, but, somehow, he still smashed his opponents.

Wallace explains that he used the microclimate to his advantage. He grew up in Philo, Illinois, deep in the midwest, where it’s even windier than Chicago, famed throughout the world as “The Windy City.” Wallace learned not to fight the winds when he played. Instead, he harnessed their power.

And it wasn’t just in tennis that he used the winds. Wallace liked to ride his pushbike around town, tacking across the wind by using an outstretched, book-laden arm as a sail. Needless to say, the rest of the town thought he was crazy.

He applied this atmospheric expertise to his game on the court. The other kids were, without a doubt, stronger and more technically proficient than he was. They could fire shots off into the corners. But Wallace adopted a different strategy. He lobbed high, slow and straight, letting the wind wreak havoc.

Wallace had another slippery trick up his sleeve. He sweated. Profusely. Although inordinate perspiration isn’t usually regarded as a talent in day-to-day life, it worked wonders for Wallace on the tennis court. By the end of play in the clammy Illinois summer, Wallace wouldn’t be the prettiest sight – but, with enough water and salty snacks, he could play on and on.

His slicked and preppy opponents, on the other hand, would soon begin to wilt in the heat, sometimes even passing out. Wallace called himself “a physical savant, a medicine boy of wind and heat, [who] could play just forever.”

That's quite some racket.

There's no other way to spin it – Tennis aces don't emerge from nowhere.

The world of professional tennis is tough. The top 100 players in the world qualify automatically for all the tournaments on the tennis circuit, including the highly prestigious grand slams. But those ranked outside this echelon must fight it out among themselves for the remaining spots. These qualifying events – known as “the quallies” – occur before the tournament proper, and they’re barbaric in their savagery.

The quallies are packed with players on the brink of the top 100 – fading lights of previous generations, now too old or too decrepit to climb back up the rankings, as well as top 100 players who somehow missed entry-form deadlines. Most depressingly, there are hordes of lithe athletes who somehow will never get beyond the most “mediocre” of rankings.

No trick shots here. Life as a pro demands hard work and ability.

Think you’ve got tennis skills? Think that, if only you’d really dedicated yourself, you could have played pro? Think you might be able to duel with a top 100 player? Think again. You’re deluded.

On the small screen, it looks easy, but TV simply can’t transmit the abilities of these players.

Athletes’ memoirs are boring because great competitors need to be boring to be great.

One of the few certainties in publishing is that the memoirs of top athletes sell by the bucket load. But these books are, almost without exception, mind-numbingly lifeless.

Which leads one to wonder, how can someone of such physical prowess, the acme of the human condition, produce such drivel? More to the point: What do we lesser beings think we have to learn from the sonorous catacombs of their minds?

Federer has returned tennis to grace as he ascends to brilliance.

Until recently, many thought tennis had reached a dead-end. The old style of tennis was finished. In the old days, it was all about serve-and volley. After the service, both players ran to the net to face off.

But the advent of improved racket technology spelled the end for this style of play. With the improved rackets, players could linger on the baseline, blasting balls across court with immense power. Rallies went on forever. It was interminable.

Key ideas in String Theory