The Psychology of Tennis

The Psychology of Tennis

Author: The London Review of Books August 13, 2025 Duration: 46:12
As well as raw talent and incredible athleticism, professional tennis ‘requires extraordinary psychological capacities’, Edmund Gordon wrote recently in the LRB: ‘obsessive focus, epic self-belief’. Edmund – whose son is a rising star on the London under-nine circuit – joins Tom to discuss four recent books about the so-called golden generation of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray, what it took for them to get to the summit of the game, and what happens to players who never manage to break into the top hundred. They also talk about the more recent rivalry between Sinner and Alcaraz, and why Djokovic thinks a slice of bread is like kryptonite. Find further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/tennispod Sponsored link: Find out more about the Royal Literary Fund: ⁠⁠https://www.rlf.org.uk/⁠ From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/pod⁠⁠ Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Each week, The LRB Podcast extends the long-form, inquisitive spirit of the London Review of Books into a conversational format. Hosts Thomas Jones and Malin Hay guide discussions that delve into the essays and ideas animating Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, creating a space where complex thoughts on society, art, history, and literature are explored with depth and clarity. The rhythm of the podcast includes a dedicated fortnightly episode, ‘On Politics,’ hosted by James Butler, which sharpens the focus on the political forces and theories shaping our current moment. Listening feels like joining a nuanced, ongoing conversation where arguments are carefully constructed and perspectives are challenged. It’s a natural companion for anyone who believes that understanding the world requires patience, critical thinking, and engaging dialogue. The podcast doesn’t offer quick takes but rather thoughtful excavations of the week’s most compelling cultural and intellectual questions, mirroring the publication’s commitment to serious and elegant prose. This is where written criticism finds its voice, allowing listeners to immerse themselves in the debates that define our time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The LRB Podcast
Podcast Episodes
Caravaggio’s Bodies [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:56
In the 1590s, Caravaggio was one of ‘the swaggering, violent young men who terrorised Romans’, Erin Maglaque wrote recently in the LRB, and he ‘made his name by painting this violent, chaotic world’. On this episode, Eri…
On Politics: The Rearmament Consensus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:41
‘We must build our hard power because that is the currency of the age,’ Keir Starmer declared to the Munich Security Conference earlier this month. It’s a sentiment shared across Europe, where leaders have cited Russia’s…
Early Modern News [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:03
‘Information in the early modern world could move no faster than the bodies that carried it,’ John Gallagher wrote recently in the LRB. For a horse and rider, that was just under fifteen kilometres per hour. Yet postal s…
On Politics: Mandelson and the Private Life of Power [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:49
When Peter Mandelson was a minister in Gordon Brown’s government he passed confidential advice to Jeffrey Epstein, who had recently been convicted of procuring a child for prostitution. This is among the many extraordina…
Jessica Mitford’s Handbag [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:44
When Jessica Mitford (aka Decca) was eleven, in 1928, she opened a Running Away Account at Drummonds Bank. A few years later she ran away to Spain to help in the fight against Franco, and not long after that moved to the…
On Politics: A New Age of Protest in Iran [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:13
The protests that began in Iran last month have been suppressed with a level of state violence not seen since the 1980s, when the Islamic Republic executed thousands of leftists and other dissidents. In this episode, Ada…
Buckley, MAGA’s Patron Saint [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:30
‘Anti-communist​ dandy, scourge of Ivy League administrators, magazine chieftain, amanuensis to Joe McCarthy, father-confessor of the Nixon White House, Ronald Reagan consigliere: is it any wonder that William F. Buckley…
On Politics: Venezuela and the Trump Doctrine [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:35
In early January, the US military seized Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, in a display of force that echoed its numerous past interventions in Latin America. Yet in this case, Trump’s justifications for the action…
Will the AI bubble burst? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:58
‘Is it a bubble?’ John Lanchester asked in a recent LRB of the colossal amounts of money pouring into AI firms. ‘Of course it’s a bubble. The salient questions are how we got here, and what happens next.’ On this episode…
What Don Quixote Knew [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:25
In The Man Behind the Curtain, a bonus Close Readings series for 2026, Tom McCarthy and Thomas Jones examine great novels in terms of the systems and infrastructures at work in them. For their first episode, they turn to…