smashed: tennis prodigies, parents and parasites

SMASHED exposes the hidden and harsh realities associated with child sporting excellence, offering an unprecedented examination of the ruthless underbelly of the so-called ’gentleman’s game’.

Behind the glitz and glamour of tournaments like Wimbledon and the Australian Open a merciless world of tennis peasants fight to earn their spot on the grand stage. Forced to walk the tennis tightrope from the time they are toddlers, sporting prodigies unwittingly sell their soul to the industry. Meanwhile, agents, coaches and hangers-on are free to politely extort the immaturity of players, only to discard them once the well has run dry. Todd Ley, once the world’s top junior tennis player, the youngest athlete ever signed by IMG and a child inmate at a renowned international sporting academy, blends wild anecdotes, raw truth, tragic comedy, and hard-won experience, to vividly capture the reality of being a child tennis star and the devastation it wreaked on his adulthood. Ley’s darkly funny, unfiltered commentary is a fascinating read, delivering uncomfortable truths and coaching gold to put the game on notice.