Brad Gilbert has written a tennis book that will make you think. At least that's its premise.
In "Winning Ugly," Gilbert talks about how he's been able to make nearly $10 million playing tennis despite having ground strokes that look like they were invented by a bricklayer. He talks about how he's been able to, on occasion, beat Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Andre Agassi, Jimmy Connors, Michael Chang, Jim Courier, Pete Sampras, Michael Stich and Guy Forget - your basic Who's Who of latter 20th Century tennis - and make them all shake their heads and wonder how on earth it happened. And he takes particular pleasure in telling about the time he got John McEnroe to announce his "retirement" from tennis at age 27.McEnroe's retirement was premature, of course. He lived to plague the tennis world long after 27. But for a few hours after a 7-5, 6-4, 6-1 loss to Gilbert at the New York Masters, Mad Mac just knew he was finished.
"When I start losing to players like HIM," said McEnroe in his post-match tirade as he glared at Gilbert, "I've got to reconsider what I'm doing even playing this game."
"If he thought I'd be insulted, he was wrong," responds Gilbert in his book. "In fact, I loved it.
"John McEnroe and I have never exactly been what you'd call best friends," he goes on to explain. "I guess that can happen when two people don't like each other. He thinks I've got bad strokes. I think he's got a bad attitude. But the truth of the matter is that McEnroe is right. On paper he shouldn't lose to me. And neither should Becker, Agassi, Connors, Chang, Edberg, Courier, Forget, Sampras, Stich, Wheaton and a lot of other guys with better strokes and so-called natural ability."
If that isn't enough to hook your basic weekend competitive tennis player, then Gilbert rests his case. But the truth of the matter is it probably is enough to hook a lot of tennis players - and perhaps the occasional obsessed golfer - into paying the $11 purchase price to find out just exactly HOW one of the "ugliest" players ever ranks as one of the 10 top money winners of all time.
Gilbert spends 211 pages to explain just how, but the gist of it is this: Don't be brain-dead.
"Most weekend players, most club players, most recreational players, are brain-dead on the tennis court," says Gilbert. "At tennis clubs and public courts the wrong choice is made about 85 percent of the time.
"Recognize. Analyze. Capitalize," writes Gilbert. "That applies before, during and after a match."
Gilbert sees a tennis court as a giant chess board. "I've used whatever talent and skills I do have in a calculated way that maximizes their potential; that gives me my best chance to win. It's why I've been able to beat players who are supposedly `better' than me," he says. "You can do the same. Make the most of what you've got. Play better tennis without better strokes."
"Most players will bust their buns to improve a particular stroke," he continues." They'll take lessons, hit on the ball machine, bang against the backboard, practice in the hot sun. Blood, sweat and tears, the whole bit. Then having improved whatever stroke they're trying to perfect, they won't spend a minute figuring out how to use it to maximum effect during a match. Brain-dead. Hard workers, but brain-dead."
What makes Gilbert's book so engaging is its blend of self-deprecation intertwined with remarkable tales of giant-killing. At one time or another, nearly every monster of the game has fallen prey to Gilbert and, as with the McEnroe match mentioned above, he obviously enjoys himself immensely recounting his experiences.
If David had written a book after the match with Goliath, it would probably read like this one.
Gilbert includes many insightful looks at weaknesses of the greats. Boris Becker, for example, tends to work himself into a silent rage after he misses more than one or two forehands. "That's when he'll start screaming at himself in German," writes Gilbert. "The rest of his game can start to wobble."
That may not help a reader win his club championship, but it does suggest that if Boris Becker has a weakness, then probably everyone else does, too.
Which is the whole point of the book. As Tom Chivington, Gilbert's coach at Foothill Junior College, wrote of the first time he saw Gilbert hitting on a court, "I made a mental note: `No forehand. No backhand. No volley. Weak serve.' I also made a note of something else: `Wins matches.'
"A coach's dream," added Chivington. "A kid who could figure out how to win without any outstanding weapons."
A kid who could win ugly.
It ain't braggin' if you've done it.