The Cruelest Game

Is This The Most Underrated Skill in Elite Performance?

excellence, actually, 22 October 2026. The book comes up at 19 min 21 sec in.

One of the hosts mentions currently reading "The Cruelest Game" by Matthew Futterman, describing it as being about how tennis is specifically designed to drive people crazy. They use it to illustrate a point about survivorship bias — that tennis players who choked when they weren't feeling good and then quit the sport entirely never become part of the stories we hear. They say it is "amazing" and strongly recommend it.

Listen to this episode ↗︎