DAVE WHITEHEAD began playing tennis as a child. It seemed to him to be more civilised and less brutish than sports like rugby and bare-knuckle fighting, and it was also readily available in sunny San Diego, California, where he then lived. So young Dave got better at tennis than at other pursuits, such as school, and when a mediocre US university needed to make up the numbers of its tennis team, he gladly accepted an offer of a scholarship. Eventually, he took and somehow passed the United States Professional Tennis Association certification test in 1980. After playing and preaching tennis etiquette for many years, it occurred to him that he might share his knowledge about the game with the sort of misguided and undeserving people who hadn't yet sought his services as a coach. So in a burst of unaccustomed idealism and overt greed, he wrote The Tennis Junkies' Guide (To Serious Humor) - an 'unheralded classic', in the words of Mrs Whitehead. More than three decades after becoming a pro, Dave is still working on his backhand.