Tennis as a Wisdom Practice: A Story About the Quest for Mastery By Carl Frankel
Review by Jimmy Parker
After reading the book, it’s not clear to me whether the author is a better writer or tennis player – he’s awfully good at both! Frankel has written many books on a multiplicity of subjects over several decades. In this book, just the idea of a quest for mastery – tennis or otherwise, hooked me.
His account of attempting to scale the heights of national-level senior tennis will resonate with anyone who plays and tries to get better (faster). It’s pretty clear that competitive tennis is not just a physical game – it demands our engagement with the mental/emotional and spiritual elements as well. As Bob Litwin says in his Preface, competition can help one grow, not just as a player, but as a person.
The beginning of the quest began rather serendipitously. A friend of Carl’s was sending off a video tape of himself to Brent Abel for his critique. Brent noticed the guy who was hitting with his student, and not recognizing him, laughingly said something like “He could be a top-ten player – we don’t need the competition!”
That off-hand comment started Carl to thinking. He had been a top player in his section as a junior, but had not played much in recent years. Could he indeed become a national top-ten senior player? Since he had last competed, tennis had been transformed from the game of Connors, McEnroe and Borg, to the soaring magnificence of power and athleticism that we see on tour today. It might require a serious retooling…
As Frankel committed himself to that journey, he became ever more aware of how much “tennis skills are life skills. The sport can be as fertile a spiritual learning ground as the martial arts.”
The tennis court provides the opportunity to develop deeper awareness, resilience, immersion in the present, and self-forgiveness. Yin and Yang enter the equation, as do “games beyond the games.” Confidence and doubt, failure, the workings of the Monkey-Mind are all scrutinized. I love his language when he tells us, “I can’t help but wonder if the pursuit of the zone in tennis, which is something every serious tennis player yearns for, is actually the pursuit of enlightenment, draped in sweaty secular clothes.”
I don’t know whether this is going to require a spoiler alert, but yes, Carl Frankel does indeed reach the Top Ten in the US - #2 in fact! But like everything else, it’s the journey that is important. I’ll let him tell you the rest of the story. Buy the book!