My Life with the Pros

Collins has been covering tennis for 30-odd years for the Boston Globe , PBS and NBC and has seen the sport change radically. He begins by recounting his 1955 interview at the Longwood Tennis and Cricket Club in Brookline, Mass., with an aging Hazel Wightman, who personified tennis as the genteel pastime of wealthy amateurs. Collins goes on to chronicle the revolution that has since taken place in the sport, particularly the battle for open tennis, in which pros and amateurs compete against one another; the advent of the Van Alen Simplified Scoring System, which introduced the tie-breaker; and the organization of World Championship Tennis and World Team Tennis, which, although they did not succeed, proved that the pros are here to stay. Anecdotes about players take a back seat in this competent albeit not exceptional history of the sport. Photos not seen by PW. (May)