A nice review on amazon... Great Read! By IanB Be forewarned, this is kind of a rant but one that maybe others recognise as well in terms of the tennis media. As probably a lot of people wonder here already, and as Michael Chang is quoting as saying in this book: Why a book on Marcelo Rios? Well... I have posted maybe one or two reviews here on Amazon total but I think this deserves one. If not just because of the book itself but also the subject matter. And believe me I realise this will also seem probably like some form of soliloquy. Like a lot of the reviewers here I was a huge admirer of Rios. Much has been written & said about him and I can only thank Scoop for writing this book. I remember watching Rios demolish Agassi at the Miami tourney in 98. There was definitely something magical about his game. And again youll have to forgive me as I will probably go on and on not just on the books merits, which I think are many, but I wanted to call out the U.S. tennis media in general as Luke Jensen did (if indirectly). He has some of the most poignant comments amongst many in the book. I mean, if you were only connected to tennis through ESPN via Cliff Drysdale & pals and Bud Collins you probably would never have paid any attention to Rios because both of them told the general public he is a jerk/not worthy/fill-in-the-blank. Dont get me wrong; Bud Collins talent as a commentator, tennis historian as well as a writer is unparalleled. As I am sure much could be said about many other reporters there is something to be said that just because you guys are slighted by someone (Cliff and Bud) doesnt mean he sucks. As a journalist I would think its part of your job to want to understand your subjects better however hard that may be. Getting to know someone is always difficult. Sometimes we never know how someone ticks. If it turns out to be too much of a pain to delve dont assume anything and just write that person off, which is what both of the two aforementioned journalists did. I would much rather read or hear that as a reporter you dont know what he/she is like or what he thinks, as Mary Carillo and McEnroe amongst many others, did in the book. I think by assuming certain things as C. Drysdale and B. Collins did they are performing a disservice to their profession and in some form or another failed in that facet as a journalist. And sadly you still hear it to this day as they will never give any credit to Rios. You can love him or hate him but you cannot deny Rios mastery. He is a very intriguing subject.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Mar 2014 15:20:04 +0000
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