Serious

John McEnroe

I'm probably completely missing the point but I like John McEnroe as a commentator (and, now, as a writer) far more than I ever liked him as a player. I think not liking him was more to do with his frizzy hair than his bad boy image - that's how you think when you're twelve - or how I did, at least. He burst onto the Wimbledon commentary scene a couple of years ago and was instantly by a long way the smoothest and most entertaining of all the pundits. It seemed like he'd been doing Wimbledon commentary for years (one of the things you learn from his biography was that he HAD been - but for the American networks).

Was he even one of the greats as a player? If you include doubles titles there's no doubt that he was. If you think it's only singles that count then, well, he was run of the mill. Not surprisingly, McEnroe rates doubles (and all team sports) highly. The book is spiced with the stories of his doubles and Davis Cup competitions as much as the great singles wins.

At the back of the book McEnroe lists 25 ideas to improve the game of tennis, one of which is to reduce the length of the tennis season, to give players more time to recover and to encourage the public's appetite for the game. Less is more and all that. Remember, John, in this country, effectively, tennis as a spectator sport DOES only last for two weeks. It doesn't seem to have done much for the health of the game here.

Serious is a fun bioraphy and it landed comfortably inside my top 10 for 2004. And fifteen-love to the British publishers for dumping the American title - You Cannot Be Serious - and opting for this obvious improvement.