The Tournament

by John Clarke

Genres: Biographical

Synopsis

A novel of the 20th century in which the greatest thinkers and personalities engage in a two-week tennis tournament. "If you didn't know better you'd think this city had gone crazy. The streets of Paris are full of celebrities and media, and out at the stadium the crowds are already huge as players pound the practice courts in preparation for the greatest tournament of the modern era. At the airport, where they've opened three more runways and put on extra staff, players and officials have been arriving like migrating birds. From all corners they've come, the stars of the modern game. What a line-up!" -- from The Tournament The most unusual tennis tournament in history is about to start. Albert Einstein is seeded fourth, Chaplin, Freud, and van Gogh are in the top rankings, and seeded first is Tony Chekhov. In all, 128 players -- everyone from Louis Armstrong to George Orwell, Gertrude Stein to Coco Chanel--are going to fight it out until the exhilarating final match on center court. The Tournament is a funny, strange, and beguiling book in which, game by game and match by match, the world's most creative thinkers put their tennis skills to the ultimate test. And if you read carefully, you'll be set for life--having learned the cultural history of the 20th century!

Release date: September 10, 2003

Publisher: Hachette Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Ibsen and Monet v. James and Twain

If the players in this city aren’t careful they’re going to be among the most famous people on earth. Paris has gone crazy. More people in the streets would be hard to imagine, and that’s not counting the celebrities, the journalists, the experts. Every hotel is booked out. There are flags and banners everywhere, every color under the sun.

Out at the stadium the crowds are already huge as competitors pound the practice courts in preparation for the greatest tournament of the era. Organizers predict it will be the most successful event of its type ever staged. All tickets are sold, there’s not a single ground pass left and the worldwide television audience is tipped to be in the billions.

They’ve opened three more runways at the airport where players and officials have been arriving like migrating birds. Make no mistake about it, this tournament is anyone’s and they’ve come from all corners, the stars of the modern game.

Some have arrived in teams, the Germans last night: Hermann Hesse, Brecht and Weill, Gropius, Carnap and the great Mann, Heidegger, Schweitzer, Ernst. What a lineup!

Reporters tried to get a few words as the players came through but they were hurried out a side door.

“No interviews will be permitted,” said a German official.

This morning the Austrians were less formal. Gustav Mahler introduced some of the team: Wittgenstein, Melanie Klein, Werfel, Kokoschka, Gödel and Klimt.

“We’re looking forward to playing here,” he announced.

“Where is Freud?” asked Tennis magazine’s Norman Mailer.

“Arriving by train,” said Mahler. “Tonight, I think.”

From America we have Ernie Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Crosby, Frankie Wright, Ray Chandler, Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Gertrude Stein, Isadora Duncan and Mary McCarthy. Amelia Earhart flew her single-seater from New York.

“Great to be here,” said Ernie. “The plane was high in the air. I slept and then I ate and drank and then I slept again. The sun came up. I drank again and then I slept. Then the plane banked and came in and landed and stopped and I could hear the great big engines being turned off. That’s the way it is.”

The South Americans have been training in Italy and turned up yesterday before anybody else: Borges, Rodo, Rivera and Kahlo, Neruda and Villa-Lobos.

The Swiss and the Dutch are here. Watch the Dutch. Their record is excellent and Escher and van Gogh are two of the strongest chances in the men’s competition.

The formidable Russian contingent came in over several days. They’re taking this seriously and have left nothing to chance: Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Pavlova, Akhmatova, Eisenstein, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Pasternak and Chagall, they’re all here. And, perhaps most importantly, Chekhov and the Count are in town.

The English hope for glory and are here in numbers. “The strongest team ever to cross the Channel,” according to Frank “the Ferret” Leavis, who’ll be trying to get through the qualifiers. Lawrence, Waugh, Kipling and Maugham, Auden, Spender and Isherwood are here. Little Bertie Russell and Herbie Wells are here. Edith Sitwell, Dot Sayers, Virginia Stephen-Woolf and Vita Sackville-West are here. Orwell is expected any minute.

From Poland have come the great Nijinsky and Conrad, the gifted Rosa Luxemburg and the fabulous Paderewski. Nijinsky was “pleased to be back. I’ve always loved playing here. I feel good. Very fit. Watch this.” And quite suddenly, wearing an overcoat and carrying three suitcases, he leapt five meters straight up in the air.

Beckett arrived on a bicycle, Joyce and Chaplin by car. Tallulah Bankhead came up the river on a barge. W. C. Fields arrived by dirigible. Buster Keaton was catapulted in from Belgium, Escher arrived through the departure lounge, Dali came by overnight post and Alice Toklas sent herself as an attachment. Einstein said he had come by tram.

“But there is no tram to Paris,” corrected George Plimpton from the Paris Review.

“That might account for the time lapse,” Einstein explained.

And from all over France the French have arrived: Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus, the considerable Proust, Braque, Derain, Seurat, Debussy, Bernhardt, Cocteau, Satie, Duchamp. What depth there is in the French game! And what will they do in front of their own crowds?

“Where is Picasso?” asked Roland Barthes from Paris-Match. “And where is SuperTom?”

But the Spanish champion delayed his arrival at the stadium until late afternoon. Pablo Picasso stepped out of an open sports car to a rapturous reception at 5:55 p.m., just in time to make the evening news.

The London-based American SuperTom Eliot was more subtle, coming in under the radar late at night and staying with friends “to avoid any fuss.” His preparation is said to be “perfect, if he gets a decent draw.” Opinion seems to be that if he and Picasso are in opposite halves of the draw we’ve got a real contest on our hands.

Oscar Wilde is in from London. “Couldn’t stay away,” he said. “One should always attend events in which one has no possible interest. They are invariably the most rewarding.”

“Are you serious?”

“A gentleman should always be serious. It amuses one’s butler and fortifies the religious convictions of one’s mother.”

“But an event which is of no interest cannot possibly be rewarding.”

“That is a thesis refuted by its own expression. I’m happy to say that, properly used, the language is full of them.”

“But surely if language has meaning, it is because each individual word has meaning. A word that means nothing is useless.”

“Everything contains its own opposite. That is its strength. Nothing is itself alone. That is its.”

Live television and Internet coverage of this astounding event began with an exhibition doubles match featuring Henrik Ibsen and Claude Monet against Americans Henry James and Mark Twain. The big-hearted Norwegian and the French institution were given a hero’s welcome as they came out on Centre Court and memories flooded back as they slipped into their old rhythm. James played a perfectly timed lob at one stage and Ibsen lost sight of the ball. Monet moved away down the service line, keeping the ball over his left shoulder, and prepared to manufacture any kind of a shot to keep the ball in play. At the last minute, going left to give himself room, he hit a backhand crosscourt drive which dropped just over the net.

“I thought it was a forehand down the line,” said Twain later. “It looked like a forehand down the line.”

“Was it not a forehand down the line?” said James. “My clear recollection is that it was a forehand down the line.”

“We are doomed,” said Ibsen.

“It was supposed to look like a forehand down the line,” said Monet.

“It did,” said Twain. “How do you do that? That’s brilliant.”

“I try to make it look as if it feels as if it’s a forehand down the line,” said Monet.

“Try not to be absurd,” said James. “Nobody of any importance is persuaded by what something looks as if it feels like.”

“Are you kidding, Henry?” said his partner. “Why didn’t we get it back?”

Ever the showman, Twain pulled out an armory of trick shots and on several occasions all Monet and Ibsen could do was stand and applaud. Playing in bare feet because there was a frog asleep in one of his shoes, Twain hit the ball through his legs, around his back and from as far as three rows back in the stands.

“He’s completely ridiculous to play against,” said Ibsen. “He drives you crazy. I spoke to him about it at one stage and he called an official over and told him I didn’t have a ticket and he’d never seen me before in his life.”

“You need to keep these old guys on their toes,” said Twain, “or they’ll seize up altogether. I promised Ibbo’s wife I’d run him around a bit.”

Ibsen was the one player of his era Twain never defeated. “Ibbo was too complicated for me,” he said. “I could never get within a day’s walk of him. He seemed to understand things the rest of us knew nothing about.”

Ibsen made light of this regard. “They’re good fellows,” he said. “That James is a joy to watch. I just try to get the thing back over the net. With him it’s an art. If youngsters want to learn the way the game ought to be played, they should watch Henry.”

“Don’t watch me,” said James. “Look at Monet. He has revolutionized the way it’s done in France.”

“He’s great,” said Twain, “although don’t tell him we said that. What’s French for ‘little fat guy’?”

“Twain,” said Ibsen, “is a great tactician and a beautiful liar. It is true he never beat me. What he fails to point out is that we never played each other. The first time we won the All of England doubles title together, he played such shots as I’ve never seen and when we were presented with the trophy he said to me, ‘Hey, Whiskers, you’re pretty good at this. Have you ever tried fishing?’”

And Monet?

“Dream partner,” said Ibsen. “A genius.”

In what way?

“In the way geniuses are,” replied Ibsen.

But how do you know he’s a genius?

“He looks as if he feels like a genius,” said Ibsen.

Umpire Rodin, from France, hardly moved.

The World Tennis Organization (WTO) announced the men’s and women’s seedings at an official lunch. Aside from the removal of a woman named Violet Trefusis following an incident involving a Mars bar, the occasion was said to have gone “very well indeed.” The seedings are:

MEN

1 Chekhov, 2 Yeats, 3 Eliot, 4 Einstein, 5 Joyce, 6 Conrad, 7 Picasso, 8 Tolstoy, 9 Pasternak, 10 Duchamp, 11 Paderewski, 12 van Gogh, 13 Freud, 14 Chaplin, 15 Puccini, 16 Nijinsky.

WOMEN

1 Earhart, 2 de Beauvoir, 3 Pavlova, 4 Bernhardt, 5 Pankhurst, 6 Stein, 7 Stephen-Woolf, 8 Garbo, 9 Christie, 10 Chanel, 11 Stopes, 12 Melba, 13 Montessori, 14 Mead, 15 Akhmatova, 16 Pickford.

There are no surprises among the men with world number 1 Tony Chekhov and Big Bill Yeats heading the list, which otherwise proceeds in accordance with current WTO computer rankings.

Why the women’s seedings are at odds with international rankings is not clear although some observers say their game is less predictable than the men’s.

“I don’t think that’s the real story,” said American Mary McCarthy. “The WTO doesn’t know what’s going on in women’s tennis. How the hell would they? They’re not interested.”

Suggestions that the seedings of the two French players, Simone de Beauvoir and Sarah Bernhardt (seeded 2 and 4), have more to do with currying favor with French television than with actual standings were rejected by organizers. “Absolute nonsense,” an official retorted. “We looked at world rankings, past records and form on this surface.”

This does not explain top-seed American Amelia Earhart, whose best results have not been on any surface at all. Nor does it explain why world number 2 Virginia Stephen-Woolf is seeded 7, world number 1 Anna Pavlova is seeded 3, world number 5 Greta Garbo (Gustafsson) is seeded 8 and world number 6 Tallulah Bankhead is unseeded although, as she says, the tournament doesn’t start until Monday.

The US camp was rocked tonight when top junior Bill Burroughs, here with boy wonder Jerry Salinger to provide practice for the Americans, returned a positive swab following routine drug tests. His coach, Ernie Hemingway, was furious with his charge when reporters caught up with him. “I don’t know what went wrong,” said Hemingway. “We were like father and son.”

“It was never going to work,” said Burroughs. “We were like father and son.”

Burroughs tested positive to every one of twelve banned substances and left this evening in disgrace but unrepentant. “It’s ridiculous,” he said. “You’re expected to perform above yourself but you’re not allowed to get there. The system’s fucked.”

“The day Burroughs knows anything about systems there’ll be a blue moon in the sky,” said Hemingway, “rather than a sun. The sun is always there. It was there yesterday. And again today.”

“Hemingway is fucked,” growled Burroughs. “A guy who spends his spare time blowing away elks is not a well-balanced guy. Face it, the man’s a fruitcake.”

“Burroughs is a self-destructive little faggot,” said Hemingway, “and everybody knows it.”

“This is great stuff, Ernie,” said Burroughs. “I’d get it down while you’re still sober and alive.”

An hour later American Davis Cup captain Butch Whitman released a statement aimed at steadying the US camp. He made it clear that he was the captain, that Burroughs’ behavior had been unacceptable and that there could be no tolerance in such matters. Hemingway was also out of order, he said, in publicly disparaging the sexual orientation of another player. “This was not at issue and neither should it be. This is your captain speaking.”

Whitman also had a problem with the other young sparring partner, Jerry Salinger, who burst upon the scene when he took out the American Schools Championship and then a fortnight later won the Junior US Open, the only tournament he has played since. Suggestions that he has been here for a week, practicing at a private resort in the hills, were quickly dispelled by a statement from his home in Connecticut, saying that he had “no interest whatever” in playing, and would not even watch the event on television. When organizers asked to speak to him, however, they were told he had gone out for a Coke.

“If he is here,” said Whitman, “I am his captain.”

The weather was beautiful here today as the qualifying matches were completed and the champagne opening was declared a huge success.

The full draw in both the men’s and women’s singles was posted early this evening. Unfortunately world number 6 American Gary Cooper has withdrawn from the tournament because “there’s something I’ve got to do.” Otherwise the big news was the drawing of powerful Austrian Gustav Mahler to play Tony Chekhov in a first-round match which will no doubt attract a huge audience.

Organizers are also expected to announce a first-round bye following the mercurial Belgian René Magritte’s claim that he had already conducted his opening match on a train.

“This is not possible,” said tournament referee Charles Darwin.

“It is possible,” Magritte replied. “I have a picture of it.”

“This is not within the rules of a tennis tournament.”

“This is not a tennis tournament,” he replied.

“And get that bag off your head,” said Darwin. “You’re not funny.”

“I beg to differ,” said the unassuming Belgian.

Bernhardt v. Blyton • Baker v. Lillie • Toulouse-Lautrec v. József • Duchamp v. Milne • Sartre v. Ellington • Einstein v. Arp • Hitchcock v. Waller • Maugham v. Fields • Thorndike v. Klein • Astor v. Millay • Luxemburg v. Riefenstahl • Wodehouse v. Scriabin • Fermi v. Toscanini • Joyce v. Bartók

Friedrich Nietzsche, president and CEO of Nike, put it well when he was interviewed on television. “There is a real sense of occasion about this tournament; the best of the older players are still good enough to mix it with the fast rising younger ones. It’s a chance to see the absolute cream.”

“What about the outlook for the game?”

“Never been better. It’s huge,” he said. “We’re going into Poland, the Low Countries, North Africa, Valhalla, you name it.”

“Russia?”

“Ah! Now you mustn’t get me on that one. See our legal people about that sort of thing.”

“Thank you very much.”

“See Gayle.”

“Pardon?”

“Have a word with Gayle, she knows all about these things.”

There were mixed fortunes for the French on an exciting opening day in ideal conditions. Sarah Bernhardt was business-like against English hope Enid Blyton, and two US-born Parisians Jo Baker and Sylvia Beach had good wins, the exotic Baker seeing off brilliant Canadian Beatrice Lillie who played the match in skates and very nearly won it. Bernhardt described her match as “a good hit-out although the real battle here will be against the Germans.”

Baker agrees but is also wary of the Americans. “If you’re black and a woman,” she says, “you can’t be too careful of the Americans.”. . .