Customer Reviews

Bud Collins' Tennis Encyclopedia (3rd ed)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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. . . treat its facts with a little skepticism, as the errors are disappointingly numerous. Bud Collins is a treasure, but nobody's perfect and he deserves a better editor.

This is a very intriguing (if not lengthy) account of tennis players (past and present), the various tennis records, past winners of the major tournaments, and other statistics that will intrigue avid tennis fans like myself. Bud Collins is a very colorful and interesting person, and he knows a lot about the game! He even provides an account of the history of the game. This is the most in-depth look at the game that I've found. It's a great book.

I enjoy Bud, despite his preference for Becker over Edberg, but all in all, a very good tennis reference. I have something called The World Encylopaedia of Tennis, but this is more comprehensive and more current. A must for anyone interested in the history of tennis.

If you want a book wanting to hear every possible Collinsesque hackneyed metaphor about practically everyone who ever played on the Pro Tour, this is the book to get. It is an amusing read, but as the title states, it is Bud Collins' Encyclopedia, not an encyclopedia by Bud Collins. It could have used some more hard facts and stats to Beef it up... as it is, it looks like old Bud had a great time writing it, but that was his only reason for doing so.

This book is huge and is not to read for enjoyment. It is a book filled with stats, rules, and tons of information on tennis. Why would a normal person want to know all of this? He won't. Who would want to buy this? A tennis freak. What exactly is a tennis freak? He would be someone that plays tennis almost everyday if not every weekend at the very least. Someone who would play rain, snow, sleet, or shine. Someone who would tape all the best matches on TV and then analyze them frame-by-frame later. Someone whose conversation goes something like this: "Remember the lob Edberg threw over Becker on the last set, eigth game at the 1990 Wimbledon? My God, that was the turning point of the entire match!"

My brother, who lives in Boston, sent this book for me in 1998. It's really an encyclopedia, covering up the facts until 1996 (at least in my Edition). It's very fun reading, it has the rules of the game, the hiistory, the profiles of the top players of all generations. It only lacks in its editoring process, with a low material printing, but what matters is that the informations serve very well a tennis fan.