CBR15 BINGO: (Hold Steady Square: The main character here desperately tries to hold steady. She is terrible at it.)
This is a little like Daisy Jones and the Six but with tennis, and I’m not mad about it. Not trying to diminish Jenkins Reid’s writing here at all. She has a lane and she is staying in it: complex female characters who are unapologetically who they are. Can they learn from their mistakes? Sure. Can they open up a little and let people in? They can. What they don’t do is fundamentally change who they are. Even the difficult prickly bits. I find that very satisfying and a lane worth sticking in.
A tennis phenom throughout the late 1970s and early 80s, Carrie Soto retires at 31 after she badly injures her knee. If there is a chance that she can’t get back to being the greatest player, she won’t be a player at all. Unwilling to risk a return to professional tennis after her surgery, she pivots to marketing herself through branded tennis shoes and endorsement deals.
Five years later, when her record is tied, everything changes. No longer able to rest on her laurels, she starts to train again with her first coach: her father, Javier. Determined to defend her title, Carrie pushes her now 37-year-old body to its limits.
The story is told in Carrie’s voice but interspersed with sportscaster commentary that spends more time discussing her “bitchy” attitude than her actual talent. But, making friends with the competition is counterintuitive to Carrie. Why befriend someone who you will eventually want to slaughter on the court? After being driven to win for most of her life, Carrie’s biggest struggle is coming to terms with what she really wants. Does she want to be the best women’s tennis player of all time or the best tennis player she can be?