Mild spoilers ahead for In Your Court.
I know almost nothing about tennis. By the final chapters of Kit Haley’s In Your Court, I was ready to argue about prize money, ranking points and the brutal economics of the tour.
That is the trick of this book: it makes you fall for an entire world while two men fall for each other inside it.
Earlier this month I covered the book’s Sydney launch at Romancing the Novel in Paddington. This is the review I promised.
READ MORE: Inside Kit Haley’s debut novel being called Australia’s answer to Heated Rivalry
For anyone arriving late: In Your Court follows Matteo Russo, an Australian and the first openly gay professional on the tennis tour, whose brilliant junior career was derailed by a freak accident. After losing yet again to rich, arrogant American superstar Miles Callahan, Mat dares him to play Wimbledon with no coach, no team and no fancy hotel.
Miles says yes, and the fun begins.
One head, not two
Most queer romances are two-handers. We alternate between our two protagonists’ heads, so we always know what both men are feeling. In Your Court is told solely from Mat’s point of view, and I loved it.
We never know what Miles is really going through, so we second-guess his behaviour and find ourselves just as surprised as Mat when events play out. It makes every thaw between them feel earned.
‘It is a sport for rich people’
Haley’s note at the end of the book apologises to obsessive tennis fans for taking some editorial liberties. No apology needed from where I sit, because I truly feel I learned a lot about the sport.
Chiefly, that tennis is a game for the wealthy. Because it is an individual sport, players pay for their own teams and travel while competing, and the financial gap between the top of the rankings and everyone else is staggering.
As Haley said at the launch, the distance between the world number one and the world number 100 is “an enormous financial gulf”.
A rivalry you cannot look away from
In other queer sports romances, from Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry to the NFL and NHL worlds of Eden Finley and Saxon James, the rivalry lives between two teams. Tennis is an individual sport, so here it is intimate and deeply personal.
Mild spoiler: there is a stretch of the book where Mat and Miles must compete against each other, and it is brutal and nerve-racking. We love both of them. We love them together. But one has to win and the other has to lose.
READ MORE: How Heated Rivalry changed queer sports romance
More Katie, please
Mat’s best friend Katie Zhang is a welcome addition to the group, and I perked up every time she appeared. I would happily read a whole book about her journey, not least to explore the gulf between the men’s and women’s tours.
Rocket, thongs and the Australia of it all
I never tired of the banter between Mat and Miles about Australianisms: the argument over rocket versus arugula, the ongoing confusion about wearing thongs. I will read any Aussie queer romance, but this one felt wonderfully, unashamedly Australian.
That is by design. At the launch, Haley said they write the way they talk, naturally Australian inflection and all, and the book is so much better for it.
The small things
Tennis and its grand slams are always so dramatic and so big. Yet many of Mat and Miles’ best moments are tiny: sharing a meal, watching a movie, doing laundry together.
There is something quietly wonderful about a love story that finds its heart in a laundromat.
Do you owe people your queerness?
This was the question Haley unpacked at the launch, and it is the one I have been chewing on since finishing the book.
Reading it, I thought a lot about what it would be like to be the world’s first openly gay tennis player. I want to believe we live in a world where Mat would be celebrated and championed as the trailblazer he is.
Instead, as significant as Mat’s coming out is, the media reduces him to that single story. Every interview circles back to his sexuality, at least until injury hands the press a different headline.
Mat is proudly out, yet a beautiful journey of acceptance still plays out across the book, helped along by a love interest navigating the closet in his own way. Haley has said writing the pair changed their own thinking: you can only ever meet people where they are at.
What’s next for Mat and Miles
The response to the book suggests I am not alone in any of this. One reviewer on Reddit’s MM Romance community wrote that it “was my highlight of the year” and tipped it for their all-time top five.
The next book in this universe will not be a direct sequel. Haley revealed at the launch that it follows new characters, an umpire and a bad boy, but they have promised to revisit Mat and Miles. “They are 100 per cent not done,” they said.
In the meantime, Haley is rewriting the book from Miles’ point of view for Patreon subscribers, which should go some way to answering all that second-guessing.
In Your Court is out now through Hachette Australia and available at Romancing the Novel, 2 Heeley Street, Paddington. I will be over here seeding #MatAndMiles until the sequel lands.
Inside the Kit Haley’s debut novel being called Australia's answer to Heated Rivalry
Kit Haley wrote In Your Court in eight weeks, 16 hours a day, as a secret side project hidden from their own publishers. On Thursday night, Sydney’s romance readers packed into Romancing the Novel in Paddington to celebrate what came out the other side.