A Terrible Splendor

By Marshall Jon Fisher,

Book cover of A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played

Book description

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 world's number one tennis…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A Terrible Splendor as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Fisher tells a bigger story of world events and heroism through the lens of one historic tennis match: the Davis Cup final between the US and Germany played at Wimbledon in 1936 with the Swastika fluttering over the sacred green lawns. I love this inspirational and dramatic book and its hero, the German tennis star, Baron Gottfried von Cramm, the most beautiful man in Europe, an aristocrat whose tennis was exquisite. But he was more than simply a player. He lost the match. Had he won, the Nazis could not have touched him, the sporting hero, but he openly criticized…

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