Word: graebners
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...Carole Caldwell Graebner, 65, a doubles champion in tennis in the 1960s, was part of the inaugural 1963 U.S. Fed Cup team and a driving force behind...
...into his opponent's backhand. In fact, his game was the antithesis of his public persona. It was the fire that flowed out from behind an impassive mask and through his fingertips. In John McPhee's 1969 book Levels of the Game, Davis Cup teammate and occasional opponent Clark Graebner described Ashe's game: "He comes out on the court and he's tight for a while, then he hits a few good shots and he feels the power to surge ahead. He gets looser and more liberal with the shots he tries, and pretty soon he is hitting shots...
...possible. He does not report the gritty $ stretches when character rules the game's flow and the flow ruthlessly illuminates character. Bud Collins gave us such narration in his wonderfully lighthearted 1989 memoir, My Life with the Pros, and John McPhee wrote the classic tennis portraits (of Clark Graebner and Arthur Ashe) in Levels of the Game. Feinstein had the opportunity to write a book that would stand with these, but he is flat where he should be funny, and unevocative where he should sketch scenes...
...room fills up with club members, USLTA officials, players in street clothes. The players stick together. The talk everywhere is tennis, but the players talk it differently than the rest. The interchangers are curt as if in code -- Connors is hot, Lutz out, Smith down, Richey tight, Ashe loose, Graebner coming back up, Alexander pushed, Reissen clutched, Sullivan is a fish, Connors is on top. It is a language that comes out of living though a life together, knowing from the inside all the levels of the game. And knowing that they all will at one time or another have...
...corner Ashe jokes with two pot bellied bearded black men. When they leave he sits silent beside his blonde wife. It is understood between them that there is to be no talk. Ashe is 30 now, and he is waiting to play his semifinal against Graebner. He has played Graebner maybe 100 times - they grew up together. They've got 11 years more experience behind them than Connors or Stockton, and they have played a whole history on the revolving wheel that Connors and Stockton have just begun to ride. Ashe looks distant, self-absorbed, steeling himself to concentration. After...