Conor Niland: The Racket [2025] paperback

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WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024

'As elegant and powerful as a Federer backhand ... It's Kitchen Confidential for tennis.' Ed Caesar

'Well worth a read if you want the inside track on life on the lower rungs of the tennis circuit. Warts and all.' Judy Murray

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When Conor Niland was 16, he was chosen to hit with Serena Williams at Nick Bollettieri's famed tennis academy. Conor, the Irish junior number one, was feeling a bit homesick. Serena, also 16, already owned her own house beside the academy.

Conor Niland knows what it's like when Roger Federer walks into the dressing room ('Ciao, bonjour, hello!'), and he has had the exquisitely terrible experience of facing Novak Djokovic in the world's biggest tennis stadium - while suffering from food poisoning. But he never reached the very top.

The Racket is the story of pro tennis's 99%: the players who roam the globe in hope of climbing the rankings and squeaking into the Grand Slam tournaments. It brings us into a world where a few dozen super-rich players - travelling with coaches and physios - share a stage with lonely touring pros whose earnings barely cover their expenses. Painting a vivid picture of the social dynamics on tour, the economics of the game, and the shadows cast by gambling and doping, The Racket is a witty and revealing underdog's memoir and a unique look inside a fascinating hidden world.

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'Conor Niland may only have managed a career-high ranking of 129 - only? that is some achievement in itself! - but The Racket, his account of how he managed this, is up there with the best half-dozen books on tennis ever written.' Geoff Dyer

'Blending a passion for his chosen sport with a realistic study of the traumas of the tour, The Racket offers a brilliant insight from Ireland's greatest ever tennis player.' John Boyne

'A brilliant, unvarnished look at a brutal sporting life.' Michael Foley, Sunday Times

'One of the best Irish sports books of the last decade' Kieran Shannon, Irish Examiner

'This will rightly join the list of The Best Irish Sports Books Ever Written. A superb insight into professional tennis from the ground up' Paul Howard

'I ate this book up ... reveals the sacrifices, commitment and decidedly unglamorous side of life on the tennis circuit' Sinead Moriarty

'A really wonderful read ... Conor Niland has delivered an all-timer for tennis and sports journalism' Ashlee Vance

'Genuinely such a brilliant book, a brilliant read' Ciaran Murphy, Second Captains

'Unsparing in his depiction of the drudgery of tennis' Mike Jakeman, Spectator

'Compelling' Tennis365.com

'Brilliant book, I inhaled it' Jonathan Drennan, Sydney Morning Herald

'Devoured it in a day ... I've read many tennis autobiographies: this is one of the very best' Charles Arthur

'If it's not a contender for Sports Book of the Year, the world has gone mad.' Fionn Davenport, Off The Ball

'Sure to become a must read of the tennis literature canon' Paul Perry

'Witty and insightful ... an homage to the game he clearly still loves' Anna Carey, Irish Times

'Honest and droll' Laura Slattery, Irish Times

'His funny, sometimes painful, memoir, is a brilliant insider's look at the brutally competitive world of tennis as well as a meditation on moments missed by inches.' Sunday Independent

'A crushing reminder of the grist from which sporting greatness emerges' The Economist

'A visceral, melancholy and often self-lacerating book ... History is usually written by the winners, but this intelligent, unvarnished, emotionally draining memoir shows why an also-ran's perspective can be just as valuable' Andrew Lynch, The Business Post

'A brutally honest assessment of his career and the effort it took to take him to the margins of the world's elite.' Tom Lyons, The Currency

'An excellent book' Denis Hurley, Irish Farmers Journal

'A searingly honest account of the real world of tennis' Irish Country Living