Todd Ley’s account of his time as a tennis prodigy may be one of the most important books you will ever read on tennis.  

Todd Ley was born into a dysfunctional family. His father, who he refers to as ‘Mad Max’, was ‘a traumatised yet charismatic character, who was a temperamental “rageaholic”, whilst my mother embodied the paradoxical role of an avoidant caretaker’. To escape the chaos and drama of his parents, as a three year old he began to continuously hit a tennis ball against the wall of his sister’s bedroom, which drove her crazy.

‘Mad Max’ discovered that Ley had a talent for playing tennis and set about ensuring he would become a world champion. Everything was sacrificed in pursuit of tennis glory, including Ley’s mental health and wellbeing. Ley experienced early success, becoming the Number One 12-year-old player in the world. He was the youngest person ever signed by sports promoter IMG, and spent four years at its academy in Florida. He gave tennis away at age 17. He had had enough. For the next 14 years he ‘was plagued by a savage discontent … battling addictions, mental health issues, and suicidality’.

In trying to come to terms with his alienation and self-loathing, he found himself ‘plummeted into’ a 12-step program to deal with his alcoholism.

The program of recovery stipulated in order to progress, I had to uncover the origins of my neurotic behaviour … So I decided to write this book.

In a preface he says that he has no interest in entering public debates about the sad state of tennis or the need for reform. Be that as it may, this is one of the most important books you will ever read on tennis. It highlights the dark side of the game, showing how tennis damages the lives of those seeking to get to the top, and provides a damning critique of parents who push their children into relentless practice, training and playing in the hope of reflected glory.

Most top-level tennis players begin their careers as toddlers. Ley began hitting tennis balls when he was three. The Osaka sisters, Naomi and her older sister Mari, did the same when they were three and four, respectively (Ben Rothenberg, Naomi Osaka: Her journey to finding her power and her voice, 2024). Ley says that while an ‘early start is essential, the decision to go all in at an early age means lines can be crossed and boundaries battered’.

Parents become obsessed with their child performing well on the tennis court. Everything else is scarified to the god of tennis. In Ley’s case (and that of other players he knows or has coached), he was home schooled (or not schooled) so he could practise more, was isolated from his family and other children to avoid distractions from tennis, with praise or criticism from his father dependent on his performance on the tennis court. Other players were seen as enemies and social contact discouraged. As Ley entered his teenage years, he was discouraged from mixing with the opposite sex as it would distract him from tennis. Off the court he was spoiled, and not required to do tasks around the home.

Much of Smashed documents the psychological harm that this conditioning inflicted on Ley. Not going to school and having friendships with children of his own age resulted in him not developing the social skills to be able to interact with people.  

Tennis became a lonely existence. I was left feeling deprived of human connection and forced to hide my desire for a normal life. I associated socialising with misbehaviour and felt guilty and shameful for wanting to interact with other people … Time alone, with very little integration into normal society, left me curious yet scared about life in general. As a teen, I slid into using unreliable sources such as social media, pop culture and porn to fill in the knowledge blanks of my limited world.

Following his retirement at 17, he found it difficult to enter into relationships with others. He lacked empathy, wanted to be the centre of attention and entered into toxic relationships with a seeming conga line of women. His lack of education, coupled with his arrogance and dislike of being told what to do, meant he found it difficult, if not impossible, to find employment. He was forced to turn to tennis coaching, the only thing he knew, to fund his never-ending need for alcohol and other stimulants.

The greatest strength of Smashed is the way in which Ley teases out the relationships between players and the various parts of the tennis world – parents, coaches, academies, the media, sponsors and administrators. His focus is on how players seek to make sense of these relationships while trying to work out who they are and navigate their way through life. He also discusses the problem of coaches grooming and entering into sexual relationships with young female players.

Ley maintains that the way parents withhold love from children unless they are successful on the tennis court constitutes ‘one of society’s biggest human rights violations’. He says psychological and mentoring support should be provided to young players.

Player welfare needs to be monitored by an unbiased individual whose priority is the safety of the child, not the advancement of their sporting career. It’s paramount that a player has round-the-clock access to a support system, such as a psychologist or a past player who has been down a similar path …

Kids who have been pushed beyond their limitations by coaches and parents need an outlet who they can vent to when their disassociation finally wears off. A person who has been down a similar path and has significantly suffered, can often be the missing piece to the puzzle. I believe an ex-sportsperson who speaks the same language as an athlete could have more potential at winning their confidence over than a traditional psychologist.

The appropriate body to coordinate the provision of such services should be the Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA), formed by Novak Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil in 2019. It is also worth noting Article 32.1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child:

States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.

Tennis officials (for the Grand Slams and the Men’s and Women’s tours) should provide the PTPA with funds to train people to perform the functions Ley recommends. In virtually all professional sports that have player associations, the governing bodies of those sports provide funds to the respective player associations to perform welfare roles.

I would add that in doing so, thought could be given to the following to guide the support for young players:

  1. Registration of all coaches who work with players who participate in professional tournaments.
  2. Registration of all players with such coaches.
  3. All registered players be required to undertake full-time schooling to age 15.
  4. A coach who coaches a player under 15 who does not have full-time schooling to have their coaching registration cancelled.
  5. Personnel with suitable qualifications, as determined by the PTPA in consultation with medical and child welfare groups, should be obtained to provide counselling to players at least once a year away from the prying eyes of parents, or if and when a player requests counselling.

For most of us with an interest in tennis we focus on the stars who dominate grand slams and ‘big money’ tournaments. Such players represent a tiny fraction of those young persons who follow the tennis dream, or what Ley calls the ‘tennis fantasy’. Ley was one of those who fell by the wayside and has spent the rest of his life trying to recover from the havoc wrought by his failed dream. In the second last paragraph of Smashed he says:

The way in which everyone dealt with my pleas for help shattered any false hope I’d clung onto, in thinking that my life could have turned out differently if I’d waved the white flag earlier. I was now convinced this was fate. For whatever reason, it was my destiny to be slaughtered by the sport of tennis, while everyone turned their heads in silence to avoid any sense of culpability.

Despite Todd Ley’s claim that he doesn’t want Smashed to be used as a basis for reform, it should be read by all involved in the world of tennis as a basis to improve the mental health and wellbeing of those wishing to pursue a tennis career. It should be especially read by any parent who believes their child has the potential to be a tennis champion. Is this what you really want to do to your child? These are not problems confined to tennis. They occur wherever parents or others push the young in the pursuit of some imagined glory, whether in other sports, the arts or academe. We are young for such a short time and should be given space and time to enjoy it and find out who we are; if only!

Todd Ley Smashed: Tennis prodigies, parents, and parasites Unsportsmanlike Publishing 2025 PB 320pp $39.95

Braham Dabscheck is a Senior Fellow at the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne who writes on industrial relations, sport and other things. He was an ineffective social player with an unbelievable range of spectacular mishits.

You can buy Smashed from Abbey’s.

You can also check if it is available from Newtown Library.

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Tags: Australian authors, memoir, mental health, tennis coaching, tennis parents, tennis prodigies, Todd | Ley, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child


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