Whoever wins at Wimbledon, many of tennis’s professionals are losers

The Racket: On Tour with Tennis’s Golden Generation—and the other 99%. By Conor Niland. Sandycove; 320 pages; £20

The men’s and women’s finals at Wimbledon on July 14th are the biggest events in tennis. They each feature two of the world’s best players competing for the oldest and most prestigious prize in the sport. But at around the same time, a dozen or so other professional tournaments will take place worldwide in far less glamorous settings, including Iasi, Romania and Tianjin, China.

These small-fry competitions are crucial because they cater to tennis’s masses: players ranked anywhere between 100th and 2,000th in the world. They may be lowly ranked, but they are highly skilled. Tennis demands remarkable speed, hand-eye co-ordination and mental fortitude. It is played by some 90m players globally, making anyone in the top 2,000 a stellar talent.