A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised For War, And The Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played By Marshall Jon Fisher
Review
“Rich and rewarding…makes a strong claim to greatest-ever status for Budge vs. Cramm in the Davis Cup…Fisher brings a sharp eye for details. He vividly sketches the anything-goes atmosphere of Weimar Berlin [and] turns up details that tennis fans will savor.”
—Wall Street Journal
“Tennis has seen plenty of great matches…but none with the extra-athletic significance of the Budge-Cramm affair…as the match enters its final set, all the narrative pieces lock together and A Terrible Splendor becomes as engrossing as the contest it portrays…Cramm’s life is a movie development deal waiting to happen.”
—Washington Post
“Richly detailed…the story moves from one nail-biting set to the next against a backdrop of improbably high personal and political stakes.”
—Boston Globe
“Vivid…The compelling nature of the match, in tennis terms alone, would be enough to make this a gripping read…But tennis is almost the least interesting element of Fisher’s account. For the historic match between the two players took place in London, with the world poised for brutal war and the players bringing all manger of psychological baggage on court with them….[Fisher] shows how sport can stand both outside the ‘real world,’ and yet remain subject to its dark whims.”
—Financial Times
“Exciting…a thoroughly riveting account of an intense human endeavor…the astonishing, inspiring story of a sports hero who was not merely a heroic tennis player, but a genuinely heroic man.”
—The Commercial Dispatch
Marshall Jon Fisher has masterfully woven the story of Europe on the edge of war, a man pursued by the Gestapo, and America on the rise into the tale of the greatest tennis match of the century. A Terrible Splendor is tense, tragic, beautifully told, and immensely enjoyable.
—Atul Gawande, National Book Award Finalist and New York Times bestseller author of Complications and Better
Forget Federer versus Nadal, and Borg versus McEnroe. Marshall Jon Fisher convincingly demonstrates that the greatest tennis match of all time was Gottried Von Cramm versus Don Budge in the 1937 Davis Cup semifinals. This is one of the best sports books you will ever read. But its more than a sports book: as absorbing as the drama unfolding on Wimbledons Centre Court is, its surpassed by the drama of history swirling outside it. Fisher masterfully weaves biography, history, and sports–and sex and romance and the drums of war–into a thoroughly riveting narrative. Full of ironic twists and astonishing revelations, A Terrible Splendor is a literary triumph.
—Scott Stossel, Deputy Editor, Atlantic Monthly
“Marshall Jon Fisher has turned a tennis court masterpiece — American Don Budge versus German Gottfried von Cramm to decide the 1937 Davis Cup — into a literary masterpiece. Blending their lives with the darkening times, Fisher illuminates bygone cultures in the fascinating tale of a July afternoon in London.”
—Bud Collins, writer for the Boston Globe and commentator for ESPN and Tennis Channel
“There could be no more disparate characters in any sport than Bib Bill Tilden, Don Budge and Baron Gottfried von Cramm. Marshall Jon Fisher has done a marvelous job of weaving the threads of these three lives together at a time when the world was coming apart and at the moment when Budge and von Cramm were playing in the most important — if not the best — tennis match ever. This is sports history at its finest and most thorough.”
—Frank Deford, Senior Contributing Writer, Sports Illustrated, and Commentator on NPR’s “Morning Edition”
“Through the prism of one of the greatest tennis matches ever played, Marshall Jon Fisher throws open a window on the terrifying world of the thirties in Europe; illuminating in vivid detail the persecution of Baron Gottfried von Cramm; the pitiful kow-towing to Hitler by the tennis authorities and, rising above it all, the innate sportsmanship of the two friends and rivals, von Cramm and Donald Budge. Between every Budge backhand and von Cramm volley, history rears up in all its ‘terrible splendor.’”
—Richard Evans, Correspondent, The (London) Observor
“For those of us who believe that tennis is a metaphor for life, here at last in this marvelous narrative is proof, served up on the rackets of Budge and Von Cramm. A Terrible Splendor is a wonderful account of a time of great historical drama, with the world on the brink of war, and everything resting, or so it would seem, on getting the ball back over the net just one more time.”
—Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner and Cutting for Stone
I’m grateful for my ignorance of tennis history, since if I’d known the outcome of the 1937 Davis Cup match before I read this engrossing book, I might not have sat on the edge of my seat and bitten my nails as Don Budge and Gottfried von Cramm served and volleyed. Marshall Jon Fisher captures two memorable characters, illuminates their historical and cultural milieus, and keeps us in delicious suspense.
—Anne Fadiman, author of the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and the New York Times bestseller Ex Libris
Why Buy A A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised For War, And The Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played By Marshall Jon Fisher?
Before Federer versus Nadal, before Borg versus McEnroe, the greatest tennis match ever played pitted the dominant Don Budge against the seductively handsome Baron Gottfried von Cramm. This deciding 1937 Davis Cup match, played on the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon, was a battle of titans: the worlds number one tennis player against the number two; America against Germany; democracy against fascism. For five superhuman sets, the duo’s brilliant shotmaking kept the Centre Court crowd–and the world–spellbound.
But the match’s significance extended well beyond the immaculate grass courts of Wimbledon. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the brink of World War II, one man played for the pride of his country while the other played for his life. Budge, the humble hard-working American who would soon become the first man to win all four Grand Slam titles in the same year, vied to keep the Davis Cup out of the hands of the Nazi regime. On the other side of the net, the immensely popular and elegant von Cramm fought Budge point for point knowing that a loss might precipitate his descent into the living hell being constructed behind barbed wire back home.
Born into an aristocratic family, von Cramm was admired for his devastating good looks as well as his unparalleled sportsmanship. But he harbored a dark secret, one that put him under increasing Gestapo surveillance. And his situation was made even more perilous by his refusal to join the Nazi Party or defend Hitler. Desperately relying on his athletic achievements and the global spotlight to keep him out of the Gestapo’s clutches, his strategy was to keep traveling and keep winning. A Davis Cup victory would make him the toast of Germany. A loss might be catastrophic.
Watching the mesmerizingly intense match from the stands was von Cramm’s mentor and all-time tennis superstar Bill Tilden–a consummate showman whose double life would run in ironic counterpoint to that of his German pupil.
Set at a time when sports and politics were inextricably linked, A Terrible Splendor gives readers a courtside seat on that fateful day, moving gracefully between the tennis match for the ages and the dramatic events leading Germany, Britain, and America into global war. A book like no other in its weaving of social significance and athletic spectacle, this soul-stirring account is ultimately a tribute to the strength of the human spirit.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews & Opinions
A spendor to read…
s a tennis history buff, I have always believed that a good tennis player and fan should know something about the history of the game. This includes the great champions and matches of the past because they helped to lay the foundation for the modern game that we see today.
I recently read this masterful, well-researched and highly-praised book on a riveting period of tennis and world history – the 1937 Davis Cup semi-final match played at Wimbledon Centre Court between Germany and the United States, as the world prepared for war.
Here’s my detailed review:
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Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played. Marshall Jon Fisher, Crown Publishers (April 2009). 321 Pages, 6 Chapters, 8 Pages of Black & White Photos.
(*The book’s title comes from a quote from Thomas Carlyle about “Fate [which] envelopes and overshadows…[against which] human will appears but like flashes [of] a brief and terrible splendor…”)
Before Federer and Nadal, before Sampras and Agassi, before Borg and McEnroe, the greatest tennis match of all, argues the book’s author Marshall Jon Fisher was probably the singles match of the 1937 Davis Cup semi-final played at Wimbledon seven decades ago between the great Don Budge for the USA (ranked number one in the world at that time), and Baron Gottfried von Cramm for Germany (ranked number two).
Click here for a Photo of Budge and von Cramm:
[...]
The greatness of the match was based on more than pure tennis (though the tennis was indeed extraordinary), but also the backdrop of impending world war and the high stakes for all, especially von Cramm.
This match was a five set thriller before a raucous crowd on the edge of their seats. It ended only after five match points in the fifth set, culminating with a spectacular running forehand winner around the netpost, and after both men were exhausted and tested to their ultimate limits. One man was playing for the honor of his country – Budge. The other, Von Cramm, was literally playing for his life (as he was targeted by the Nazi regime in his home country for alleged offenses, and only his victory on the tennis court assured him safety.) In that sense, the match became a metaphor for the poignancy of the human battle and, in the words of the publisher, ultimately the “triumph of the human spirit”.
Against it all, Fisher also writes beautifully about the rising drums of war across Europe and the world, interweaving the Budge-von Cramm match with the story of a world on the brink of global conflict.
The three extraordinary men of the book’s title are: Budge and von Cramm, of course, and the third man – Bill Tilden, the great US tennis superstar and champion of the 20s. Fisher makes many insights into their lives and inter-relationships, traces their seminal tennis contributions and even touches on their personal demons.
Budge and von Cramm were good friends on and off the court, who genuinely liked each other. Budge and Tilden naturally had the greatest respect for each other and their respective abilities. Tilden said of Budge in a comment published later: “I consider him the finest player, 365 days a year, who ever lived.” Tilden was a visitor many times to Germany and, in an interesting twist, unofficially coached the German Davis Cup team, including von Cramm and was rooting for him at the Davis Cup match, to the obvious dismay of American fans.
Bill Tilden
———-
The first great tennis superstar, who transformed the sport from a gentile country club pastime to an arena for world-class athletes where winning was the ultimate goal and aim. Tilden in his prime simply was tennis. As sports writer Frank Deford wrote: “It was Tilden and tennis, in that order.” From 1920 to 1926, Tilden never lost a match of any consequence, a record unequaled even to now. He won 10 lifetime major championships. He was also a talented writer and a brilliant student of the game. His 1925 classic book Match Play and the Spin of the Ball was studied by generations of tennis students. Consider what he wrote in his book about the “all-court player”, almost a premonition about the game’s future:
“What is the future of the tennis game? … As one of the champions of today, I see vistas of progress ahead, of which I glimpse only a bit, but which the champions of tomorrow will have explored and developed. Where are these lanes of progress? Not from the backcourt. Not from the net. It is rather in the use of the forecourt for sharp angled shots, in the use of the mid-court volley, the half volley and rising bounce shots, that future progress lies. Every player who desires to succeed in the future must equip himself with every shot in tennis and then strive to explore the mysteries of the forecourt.”
And Tilden was a consummate showman and entertainer. And he lived a flamboyant and extravagant lifestyle. He was famous for a reputedly 150MPH cannonball serve – with the wood rackets of old. Witnesses at matches, including Gene Mako, recalled that he could take 4 tennis balls in one hand – one between each finger and thumb and serve up 4 aces on command!
Tilden boasted a long career, playing on the pro tour well into his 40s and even 50s. In his late 40s, when he once beat Budge on the pro tour, Budge remarked that Tilden taught him a lesson, playing “the greatest tennis I have ever seen.” At 53, Tilden could beat much younger stars Fred Perry and Bobby Riggs. It was said he could still be the best in the world for one set. “All they can do is beat him”, wrote columnist Al Laney, “they cannot ever be his equal.”
In 1950, a AP Sports Writers poll, without any real dissent, voted Bill Tilden the greatest player of the half-century.
(Oddly enough, Tilden shares a birthday with me – February 10, and comes from the same hometown – Philadelphia. I have even played at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia where he learned to play.)
Tilden sadly carried a dark secret from the public until the end of his days. He was a homosexual, and was charged late in his life of corrupting teenage boys. He was ostracized in public but always his tennis accomplishments were honored. He died of a heart attack in his hotel room at the age of 60.
Don Budge
———-
Budge was the skinny, red-haired kid from Oakland, California, son of a truck driver, who learned the game at Bushrod public court. Later, he justifiably became “Mr. Tennis”, literally inventing the “Grand Slam” by intentionally planning and winning all four majors in 1938. (In Budge’s day, a sea journey to Australia to compete in
Excellent history and a terrific read
“A Terrible Splendor” is a wonderful book. It’s paced beautifully (like the tennis match it describes), and the build-up to the fifth and final set is simply masterful. The ways in which Fisher weaves sports, culture, and politics are extremely well done, I think. It’s excellent history all around and a gripping read, even for those of us who know next-to-nothing about tennis. I stayed up very late one night finishing it. Highly recommended!
What A Story!
Fisher, Marshall Don. “A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played”, Crown Publishing, 2009,
What A Story!
Amos Lassen
In July 1937 tennis seemed so completely civilized when Don Budge, the son of a California truck driver played against his friend Baron Gottfried von Cramm, a German aristocrat. The swastika flew with the Union Jack over the tennis court and Nazis had tea with the queen of England. Von Cramm had been coached by the legendary Bill Tilden and the three men’s stories collide here. Von Cramm had a secret–he was gay and his Jewish lover had fled from Germany. He had been investigated for homosexual activities and was barred from several matches, He refused to become a Nazi and he confided in Tilden who was also gay that he was playing for his life. This is an amazing story and quite readable.
A Terrible Splendor is great reading
I read an excerpt of this book in “Tennis” magazine a couple of months ago, and found it intriguing enough to buy and read the book. This is masterful writing at its best as Fisher weaves the lives of three main characters (tennis players) into the fabric of the political and social scenes of the 1920’s, 1930’s, and 1940’s. I happen to be a tennis fan and player, but I really believe that even if one is not familiar with tennis, he/she could enjoy this story. It is compelling.
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