Which Way To The Finals, Please‪?‬

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Which Way to the Finals, Please? is a collection of Axels tennis poems, written over a period of 50 years and illustrated with line drawings cartoons by the author. These poems are about the joys, follies, and frustrations of those who play the game or are otherwise attached to it. Anyone who has ever entered a tournament will recognize and identify with the thoughts and feelings expressed in the title poem and Club Tournament, and in Small Talk, The Comeback, The Dropshot, Foreplay, Statistics, Tactical Thinking, Pep Talk, Duck, Please - Here Comes Another One, and On Sportsmanship. The eternal hope and optimism that mark the beginning of each new year are captured in Early Season Reflections, This is the Year, The Optimist, and Squash, Anyone?; while Youth vs. Experience (see below), Confessions of a Senior Player, and My Club Career muse about the decline in on-court success that comes with age. The difficult task of ranking players based on the seasons results is captured in Ode to a Ranking Committee and Why Cant the Players Cooperate?; and the whimsical humor in The Tale of Elmo Hatch, The Sportsman,, and How Can Anyone Play Under These Conditions? brings each of these to a dramatic conclusion. The equipment and attire of the game are given tongue-in-cheek treatment in The New Racket, The Sneakers, My Bag, and Tennis Economics, and tennis balls as objects of love and hate in Ode to a Tennis Ball and The Tennis Ball. Tennis Camps are the subject of The Plot and Return from Tennis Camp. Tennis expertise is lampooned in Sic Transit Gloria; the conventions of the game are spoofed in Lament, Just Go Ahead and Serve, Why Dont You?, Extra Power, Anyone?, and in Formula for Success, Survey, and My Coach (see below); and the game itself comes under scrutiny in Tennis Simplified, Sonnet from the Courts, The Scale, Insights, Obstacles, and Theres more than Tennis to Tennis. `Songs for Tennis Players couples some familiar melodies with new, tennis-related lyrics, and Fables for Tennis Players describe several tennis-playing characters in limerick form, each with a moral. Finally, Tribute pays homage to those who do not take tennis all that seriously. This light-hearted collection of tennis poems - the only one of its kind in the literature of the game - will bring smiles and a recognition of some familiar situations to its readers, and makes a perfect gift for the tennis players and enthusiasts in your life.