From beginnings on a gravel court on a farm in rural South Africa, Gordon Forbes went on to travel the world with his long-time tennis partner Abe Segal during the late 1950s and early 60s: the glory days of Fred Perry, Roy Emerson and Virginia Wade. In this delightful insider’s account of tennis on the international circuit, Forbes looks back with laughter at his tennis playing years through a varied, successful and often outrageous career on the world’s courts.

This newly published edition of A Handful Of Summers brings back a cult classic, revealing an era populated by the most colourful tennis players of all time. More about the hilarious escapades of players than the game itself, the book begins with a short series of vignettes from Forbes’s childhood on an Eastern Cape farm in South Africa, then takes the reader on a tennis tour – into locker rooms and restaurants, narrow streets and small hotels, and onwards to the lawns of Wimbledon and the caramel coloured clays of Roland Garros.

A player of international repute, Gordon Forbes has managed to capture the irresistible charm of an era while telling the story of a young man striving to follow signposts on the winding roads of life.

The long-awaited sequel to the bestselling classic memoir, A Handful of Summers. Gordon Forbes played for the South African Davis Cup team in the 50s and early 60s and returned to the circuit as a writer and observer. In 'Too Soon to Panic' he takes the readers behind the scenes at the big tournaments - Wimbledon, Roland Garros and Flushing Meadows; Germany, Spain and Italy - and introduces them to many of tennis's most extraordinary and dynamic characters, including Mark McCormack, Rod Laver, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi. Crammed with riotously funny anecdotes and vivid evocations of the innocence and camaraderie of the game in Forbes's day - when tennis as still a gentlemanly, amateur and often rather ramshackle affair - and insightful observations on today's glamorous game - where money reigns and sheer strength sometimes seems to conquer skill - Forbes explores the remarkable changes that have come over the sport in the last forty years.

A classic memoir, A Handful of Summer is the hilarious account of the tennis travels of South African doubles partnership George Forbes and Abe Segal, and of the riotous characters who populated the amateur tennis world in the 50s and 60s as it stumbled towards professionalism. Full of superb anecdotes, bursting with vitality and humour, and written with unflagging zest and panache, it is a unique dressing-room view of the tennis world.

The hilarious, classic memoir of the international tennis circuit.

"A Handful of Summers" is a delightfully uninhibited insider's account of tennis on the international circuit in the fifties and sixties -- both on and off court -- in the glory days of Fred Perry, Roy Emerson, and Virginia Wade.

Forbes begins with his childhood on a farm in South Africa, where he learned to play tennis on a gravel court. His game takes him to Europe, as a South African Davis Cup player, and finally to Wimbledon. Along the way he cavorts with extraordinary characters among the world-class players, including a young Billy Jean King and Rod Laver -- and their tales, and his, shine throughout this irresistibly witty memoir. A cult classic among tennis aficionados when it was first published in the United States, it is a current bestseller in South Africa.