A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played

by Marshall Jon Fisher

Before Federer versus Nadal, before Borg versus McEnroe, the greatest tennis match ever played pitted the dominant Don Budge against the seductively handsome Baron Gottfried von Cramm. This deciding 1937 Davis Cup match, played on the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon, was a battle of titans: the world's number one tennis player against the number two; America against Germany; democracy against fascism. For five superhuman sets, the duo’s brilliant shotmaking kept the Centre Court crowd–and the world–spellbound.

But the match’s significance extended well beyond the immaculate grass courts of Wimbledon. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the brink of World War II, one man played for the pride of his country while the other played for his life. Budge, the humble hard-working American who would soon become the first man to win all four Grand Slam titles in the same year, vied to keep the Davis Cup out of the hands of the Nazi regime. On the other side of the net, the immensely popular and elegant von Cramm fought Budge point for point knowing that a loss might precipitate his descent into the living hell being constructed behind barbed wire back home.

Born into an aristocratic family, von Cramm was admired for his devastating good looks as well as his unparalleled sportsmanship. But he harbored a dark secret, one that put him under increasing Gestapo surveillance. And his situation was made even more perilous by his refusal to join the Nazi Party or defend Hitler. Desperately relying on his athletic achievements and the global spotlight to keep him out of the Gestapo’s clutches, his strategy was to keep traveling and keep winning. A Davis Cup victory would make him the toast of Germany. A loss might be catastrophic.

Watching the mesmerizingly intense match from the stands was von Cramm’s mentor and all-time tennis superstar Bill Tilden–a consummate showman whose double life would run in ironic counterpoint to that of his German pupil.

Set at a time when sports and politics were inextricably linked, A Terrible Splendor gives readers a courtside seat on that fateful day, moving gracefully between the tennis match for the ages and the dramatic events leading Germany, Britain, and America into global war. A book like no other in its weaving of social significance and athletic spectacle, this soul-stirring account is ultimately a tribute to the strength of the human spirit.

• ISBN10: 0307393941
• ISBN13: 9780307393944
• Publish Date: 21 April 2009 (first published 1 January 2009)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 1 February 2012
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Crown Publishing Group, Division of Random House Inc
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

Review first posted on BookLikes: http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/789150/terrible-splendor-when-fact-is-as-good-as-fiction

I am utterly exhausted today. I didn't get much sleep last night. It was just too hard to put this book down, so I read on until the wee small hours of this morning when I finished the last chapter.

And it all started with this...

"JULY THE TWENTIETH, 1937, AND Baron Gottfried von Cramm tosses a new white Slazenger tennis ball three feet above his head. It seems to hang there suspended for the slightest of moments, a distant frozen moon, before his wooden racket plucks it out of the electrified air of Wimbledon's Centre Court, rocketing a service winner past J. Donald Budge."

Last month I posted a few thoughts about my issues with non-fiction books which read like fiction and the insincerity that I feel when reading overly dramatised accounts of historic event (posted here: One Minute to Midnight), Terrible Splendor restores my belief that it is possible to write a work of non-fiction about a very specialised subject and still be engaging and believable.

Granted, Fisher's book title does read like a headline in a second-rate newspaper but it is not representative of the way the book is written. Fisher does a great job of presenting not only the biographies of the three tennis greats - Gottfried von Cramm, Don Budge, and Big Bill Tilden - but he also manages to provide extremely detailed contexts surrounding their lives, including not only the historical events of the time or insights into the relationships with family and other contemporaries but also very descriptive accounts of the development of their playing styles and tennis technique.

Now, I can appreciate that this level of detail may not be to every reader's taste but I thought it was just wonderful. If you're not into tennis, the technical descriptions of grips, racquet specs, service techniques, and plays are probably skip-able.
I particularly enjoyed learning about the development of tennis as a sport, how the Davis Cup originated, and how grand slam tournaments like Wimbledon have changed in the last 100 years. After all, it is almost inconceivable today that Wimbledon and other major tournaments were for amateurs only and professional tennis players were not allowed to participate until 1968.

The main focus of the book is, of course, on the lives of von Cramm, Budge and Tilden - each an interesting personality - but von Cramm's story, which is much forgotten today, is just as extraordinary and tragic as it is inspirational.