What Makes Elite Athletes Tick?

A new book’s search for the elusive codes that separate tennis’s GOATs from its ghosts. Illustration by Noah Hickey/The Dispatch (Photos via Getty Images). Turn any article into a podcast. Upgrade now to start listening. Members can share articles with friends & family to bypass the paywall. In 1992, David Foster Wallace published “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart” in the Philadelphia Inquirer, marking an early foray into the tennis psychoanalysis that would become ubiquitous in the novelist’s later writing. The essay is a pan of teen tennis sensation Tracy Austin’s memoir, Beyond Center Court: My Story, which Wallace calls “breathtakingly insipid.” Eli Kronenberg is a Dispatch intern and a rising senior at Northwestern University. When he’s not reporting, he is usually taking long walks, listening to an array of podcasts, or riding the emotional rollercoaster of supporting Tottenham Hotspur. More on Sports