A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men…and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played

I played a little tennis growing up…not much but a little. We did a bit of it in Jr. High gym class in the spring a couple of different years. I also belonged to a Masonic sponsored organization for girls growing up that liked to have it’s annual “Grand Assembly” (think state convention) every summer on the campus of Penn State University. For a few days before the start of the big meet-up, we would select and take a continuing education course. They were usually in things that held no interest for me as a teenage tomboy like decorating and singing but a couple of years they did offer racket sports so I jumped on those classes. I never played the game well. I was more partial to the all out assault of racquetball, but I digress.

My review today is of author Marshall Jon Fisher’s excellent book, A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played. I admit, I didn’t read the reviews before I picked up the book. I thought it would be a sports/tennis book focused primarily on a specific tennis match. I was wrong. The book does involve tennis and it does go into detail about a tennis match – the 1937 Davis Cup at Wimbledon, yes, but it’s primary focus is on one of the players, Germany’s Gottfried von Cramm. Von Cramm was a known homosexual at a time when gay men were being targeted by Hitler and his Nazi regime for internment and extermination. Gottfried von Cramm played tennis for his life in the literal sense. Winning was life, losing meant sure imprisonment in the camps and, possibly, death.

This is a riveting personal story whether you’re a tennis fan or not.