In the 2008 Wimbledon men’s final, Center Court was a stage set worthy of Shakespearean drama. Five-time champ Roger Federer was on track to take his rightful place as the most dominant participant in the history of the overall game. He simply had a need to cling to his trajectory. Therefore within the last few moments of daylight, Center Court observed a coronation. Only it wasn’t a crowning for the Swiss heir obvious but also for a swashbuckling Spaniard. Twenty-two-year-old Rafael Nadal prevailed, in five pieces, in what about Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the best Match Ever Performed was, based on the writer, ‘essentially a four-hour, forty-eight-minute infomercial for everything that is right about tennis-a celebration of skill, accuracy, grace, strength, acceleration, endurance, dedication, and sportsmanship.’ It was also the encapsulation of a fascinating rivalry, hard fought and of historical proportions.

Strokes of Genius deconstructs this defining moment in sport, using that match as the backbone of a provocative, thoughtful, and entertaining go through the research, art, mindset, technology, technique, and character that go into a single playing golf match. With vivid, intimate detail, Wertheim re-creates this epic fight in a book that is both a report of the mechanics and art of the game and the family portrait of a rivalry as dramatic as that of Ali-Frazier, Palmer-Nicklaus, and McEnroe-Borg.