ROME -- Unlike many other writers on tennis, Michael Mewshaw is not locked into the professional circuit full time.  He writes fiction and non-fiction books as well as other kinds of journalism which means he does not have to keep on the right side of those who run the professional tennis circuits - or should that be circuses.

 As a result his tennis writing has an unusually sharp edge as can be seen in this collection of his articles from 1982-2015.    They include memorable profiles of tennis stars such as Bjorn Borg, a hologram of an ‘uninteresting’ man who had extraordinary skills but seemed to have sacrificed his humanity to success.

 Mewshaw corrects David Foster Wallace’s exaltation of Roger Federer at the expense of Rafaele Nadal as a mere ‘martial’ journeyman: ‘…Nadal has his own supernal gifts and wins not by making his game seem to look easy but by making it as demanding and difficult as it actually is’.

 He is particularly perceptive about women players such as the Williams sisters, Martina Navratilova, Stefi Graf, Monica Seles, Gabriella Sabatini and those who burnt out early such as Tracy Austin and Andrea Jaeger.

 He takes the reader into the circuit backstage where the grinding routine of travel and hours of practice takes a heavy toll.   The grubby details emerge: the greed, the drugs, the sexual abuse of underage females, the gambling, the match-fixing.  These reports have irked many tennis officials.  Mewshaw describes himself as the game’s Ancient Mariner with an albatross around his neck but, if he won’t let any of us forget the details of misdeeds, many tennis officials have convenient amnesia about them.  ‘Pro-tennis’ Mewshaw finds, ‘has a notoriously short attention span and a long-standing nonchalance about breaking the rules it has written for itself.’

 He captures the atmosphere of the Roland Garros, Wimbledon, Rome and Monte Carlo tournaments and tackles issue such as the maddening waste of time through innovations such as bathroom breaks, lengthy court-side physio treatment and the toweling of faces after every point.  He pinpoints the abuse of various kinds which occur in many tennis academies and asks whether national tennis schools produce champions or only competent but boring players.

 Ad In Ad Out is a serious look at tennis enlivened by humour as in the account of Mewshaw conning his way into a semi-professional tournament in Spain where, briefly, it seemed he would win his first match, of his experience as a learner at Roy Emerson’s tennis camp, and of his match in London with Princess Fatima, sister of the Shah of Persia.  She arrived in a limousine accompanied by two bodyguards who told Mewshaw "the Princess never loses."  He did not get the point and she rarely moved to the ball but then the bodyguards made the message clearer, "The princess must never lose."  Mewshaw made great efforts to get the ball to her so she could hit winners and he could survive to write this sparkling book which ends with him explaining why, despite the distortions of the pro circuit, he loves tennis.

 ch-do'g