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Joel Drucker's avatar

Great stuff, Andrea. You bring such insight into the existential tennis journey. Indeed, Satan is very fit -- perhaps also because he-she trains in extremely hot conditions. Perhaps.

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Andrea Petkovic's avatar

hahahaha very good!

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Bill Reynolds's avatar

Ahh...Tender Is the Night. Mental illness and alcoholism on the French Riviera between the wars, utter escapism.

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jim chambers's avatar

You absolutely rock. Your command of the self revelations as they relate to sport and civility is brilliant. Your posing the conundrum of; is vacation a state of mind a state of location or the ability to just let it rip without being ripped is apt for all of us, athletes or not. My summer read is a very slow journey very late at night as my head is hitting the pillow because I work very strange hours on a book about salt. Thank you ma’am. Your writing is delectable.

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T A's avatar

Again, Andrea, your command and use of English innuendo and cultural aphorism is just splendid. Most Americans think it's "I could care less", but the mechanically precise Andrea writes, correctly "I couldn't care less". And, you obviously venerate Leonard Cohen and old Woody Allen, quite an accomplishment for a German girl two generations removed from their heydays. For reading on summer vaca, Girl, you gotta give up the dark and intellectual and go for goofy fun: try Tina Fey's Bossy Pants, or her pal Amy Poehler's Yes, Please. It's okay to skip a Friday post, you know, and just look out to the sea and mountains.

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Andrea Petkovic's avatar

oh, can’t wait to read the tina fey one!

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Aaron Fugate's avatar

I went on vacation earlier this month and hated myself a little for being so glad to come back to work because work gives my mind something to do. Gotta relearn how to relax properly!

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Andrea Petkovic's avatar

good luck with that 😔

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Mark Bridgers's avatar

Enjoy Ydra (Hydra). A special place.

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BMac's avatar

The headache about the right eyebrow, I feel you. It's the left one for me.

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Sung J. Woo's avatar

Currently reading: We're So Famous, by Jamie Clarke

On deck: The Tenth Muse, by Catherine Chung

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Phillip Edwards's avatar

Brilliant writing. I am no sportsman but totally relate to your well written post. All the best Phil

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James Joseph Dean's avatar

You’re a great read. Loved the last Wimbledon winners’ analysis. For summer reading I finished and recommend the Madonna biography by Mary Gabriel. The first half is excellent; she shows how place shaped Madonna’s life. For example, in Miami, Madonna had sex on the brain and came up with the Erotica album and Sex book.

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bellayarn's avatar

We’re on vacation, Oceania Cruise, heading to Greece!

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Michael Schulder's avatar

Fantastic. Great ongoing insights into the life and mind of an elite athlete.

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Hank Moravec's avatar

When I used to pick up A Handful of Summers every year or two, I thought, "it will be awhile before anyone comes along who could possibly write something comparable." AHOS is highly rated in the sports memoir genre (some say the best sports book of all time, certainly in terms of tennis books) because not only was Gordon Forbes a fantastic writer (who, as far as I know did not write professionally at all other than his books), but a very good player, but only very good. Not number one good. Not so good that his memoir would be a story of one triumph after another. No, AHOS is the story of an athlete that knows full well his time is limited. That's what makes it so great.

You have that ability. I hope you are thinking of either an English translation of your book or that these essays will form the basis of a memoir some day.

Steffi Graf is not going to write about how she was worried about going on vacation, and I would speculate that for the Grafs, Federers, Williams' or Djokovics, they frankly did not worry about vacation time as when the two weeks or whatever was over, unlike the rest of us mortals, their game was still there. My goodness, look what Djokovic just did!

But you know what its like and can write about it. Just so, so well. Thanks.

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Raj's avatar

Welcome to New York. You fit right in. As a born-and-raised New Yawwwka, the romanticism I have for both the city and its art (books, films, history) never fades. Here's a thing I wrote a couple years ago, in relation to Fitzgerald, I think you might appreciate as a writer/thinker: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-nonfiction/a-letter-to-f-scott-fitzgerald-from-the-second-roaring-20s.

Happy Summer, Andrea.

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Andrea Petkovic's avatar

i can’t wait to dive in!

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Jeff Hauck's avatar

Love your spin title from another great author, Hemingway.

Don’t think learned to relax properly, either.

Enjoy!

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Weston Parker's avatar

Wonderful, thanks.

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