Customer Reviews

The Match: Althea Gibson & Angela Buxton: How Two Outsiders--One Black, the Other Jewish--Forged a Friendship and Made Sports History

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I thoroughly enjoyed this well written, funny, touching and historically fascinating book. The Match brings alive the early days of women's tennis, the friendship of Angela and Althea, and most interestingly the lack of opportunity and challanges Jewish and black players faced. Schoenfeld engages the reader with a great balance of these women's personal history in fascinating places and times (post-war London for Angela and Harlem for Althea)with exciting tennis moments.

In this one book, we get a picture of life in the 50s, tennis as it was before everyone turned pro, what it was like to be an outsider in the "genteel" country club world and the enigmatic personality of Althea Gibson who overcame seemingly impossible odds. The friendship between Gibson and Buxton is both touching, amusing and sad. You'll remember this book long after you finish the last page.

It seemed a stretch to make the relationship between Gibson and Buxton the focal point of the book, since the relationship was spotty... It would have made (and perhaps did at one point) a good article.

At the same time, while the book displayed well Gibson's personality at certain points, I would have been interested in learning more about this elusive and thorny character throughout her life---A fuller biography of this important figure would have been welcome.

This book takes the reader fully back to time we've forgotten, before sportswomen were millionaires at 14, and to two people who were remarkable for any time in history. The in-depth research on Althea and Angela not only reveals much of their amazing lives but gives us the true picture of the era, as well. I loved the stories of courage and friendship, the insights from competitors and family, and the excitement of the matches. Whether you read biographies or just love sports, this is the book to read!

Back about 1960, as a preteen, I came across a paperback copy of Althea Gibson's autobiography, "I Always Wanted to Be Somebody." Books like these are why we read: to learn about a world and lives outside of ourselves, and thus [indirectly] learn about ourselves; to discover heroes & heroines, those who strove against adversity to achieve. This book was my first exposure to tennis [going on to play on the tennis team at school], and my first exposure to the struggle for equal rights. I haven't reread it in 40 years, but its lessons still reverberate.

Thus I was excited to find this book, and read it full of anticipation. The first part of the book is excellent: you get a feel for the narrow [and unprofitable, by today's standards] world which tennis occupied in the 50s; and you get a sense of how a narrow, specialized world reflects the biases of the larger world. The struggles of Angela Buxton and Althea Gibson to be accepted as players, as well as accepted as individuals, are very vivid. When we despair of the slow progress of accepting diversity, we should re-view the world of 50 years ago and note our progress. The part of the book describing the youthful lives and struggles of these two women is compelling.

After that, I felt that the book fell apart. Schoenfeld did some excellent research, but his writing became pedantic. The descriptions of the tennis matches are accurate, but lifeless. And the "after life", once they left tennis, is cursorily treated: 40 years in about as many pages. While bemoaning the fact that they were ignored by the tennis world, wasn't he doing the same thing?

I think you will be moved by the first half of the book.