The recipient of this year’s William Hills Sports Book of the Year Award 2024 is former Irish number one Conor Niland for The Racket.
Subtitled “On Tour with Tennis’s Golden Generation — and the other 99%”, The Racket is an account of a lowly touring player’s bid to climb the rankings and beat a system that’s stacked against him. It’s an essential, engrossing read for any sports fan. BAGEL caught up with Conor fresh from his £30,000 “Bookie Prize” win.
Hilary Armstrong: Congrats on the award. What’s better, a big win on court or winning the Bookie Prize?
Conor Niland: You know what, winning the William Hill award was right up there with qualifying for Wimbledon. It was a similar physical reaction. I put my head in my hands straight away. I didn’t go down on my knees — that would have been a bit dramatic — but it was a big moment. It was probably a bit more prize money than I was used to.
H.A: When did you know you had a book in you? Were you taking notes in hotel rooms?
C.N: It wasn’t hard for me to draw up the memories. When you’re on tour, you’re constantly observing; you’re so switched on and engaged in what you’re doing because you’re out there fighting for everything you can get. I wasn’t planning on writing a book. I started writing during COVID, and one paragraph became another.
HA: How did you decide to approach it?
CN: Unlike a standard autobiography of a sports person, I knew that people didn’t want a blow-by-blow account of my career. It needed to jump into the big moments and bigger themes. I didn’t want this to be me complaining for the whole book about how difficult the situation I found myself in; I’m very aware there’s more difficult things in life than being a pro tennis player. I was conscious I needed to show my failings and my foibles and to bring people into the world where there are these hierarchies and why that’s a problem.
HA: You were both an insider and an outsider.
CN: I think that was what gave me a really good vantage point for the book. I’m giving you insights to the main tour but I wasn’t cloaked in the privileges of it. Even when I was in that world, I was still a fly on the wall.
HA: The Big Three all make cameo appearances. It’s exciting when they turn up.
CN: I play Djokovic obviously, but in the Federer and Nadal scenes, and the Agassi moment too, not an awful lot happens, so it’s as much about what’s going on in my head as what’s going on in the room. The observations are as important as the actions.
HA: Andy Murray, what a mensch. He is just how we hope he’ll be.
CN: Yeah, he did lots of stuff for me that he didn’t have to do. Judy too. I think they got a kick out of an Irish guy doing well. They saw a little bit of a similar story, Scotland and Ireland, and that being an uphill battle for a tennis player.
HA: Have you had feedback from players about The Racket?
CN: Tim Henman’s read it and enjoyed it. He’s mentioned in the book, in probably not the most sympathetic light; it’s a little bit difficult on him because, he didn’t expect that text message [about a potential Wimbledon wild card for Conor] to be saved for posterity. I know Adrian Mannarino read the chapter about our match, and went off into a corner with it for half an hour which is quite funny.
