Game, set, match!

Carrie Soto is Back a sharp look at women in tennis and the challenges they still face

Carrie Soto is Back Taylor Jenkins Reid Ballantine

What timing! Just as Serena Williams announces her retirement from tennis, a new novel arrives that imagines a different scenario. While the star of Carrie Soto is Back isn't quite Williams — who could be? — she is a tennis legend facing the end of her career. The book imagines the comeback Serena's fans might have hoped for.

On one level, the title refers to an out-of-shape former competitor who craves a comeback. On another, it's inspired by the Elton John song The B---h is Back, one of Carrie's anthems. Her story encapsulates how female athletes have been historically disrespected by some sportswriters and fans.

Carrie is the daughter of an Argentine tennis champion. By 17, she was the No. 10 player in the world. At 29, she won her 20th Grand Slam event, setting a world record.

But Carrie's left knee is shot. She takes time off to heal, and when she returns to the game in 1988, she can't win. In 1989, at 31, she retires. Five years later, Nicki Chan has tied her Grand Slam record. Carrie wants her record back, so she enters the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. The final match takes place at the 1995 U.S. Open.

Carrie undertakes months of brutal training sessions.

She's coached by her father and buoyed by workouts with Bowe Huntley, a male player who has lost his mojo.

Carrie Soto (available Aug.

30) is like other sports novels in which underdogs punch, volley, bat and birdie their way to victory or defeat, but it goes beyond this to explore sexism and racism in the tennis world in the 1990s. Yes, things have changed since then. No, that doesn't make Carrie's story feel dated or read like a polemic. The vitriol spewed by the novel's antagonists, who want us to believe that women's ambition and hunger for greatness are unfeminine, still sounds like today.

While fans and sportswriters are rooting for Bowe to win, Carrie isn't treated as kindly. Bowe's racket-throwing tantrums are overlooked, while Carrie remains disliked for what many see as her cold and calculating demeanour. Her main rival, Nicki, is subject to the same type of criticism.

The parallels to the commentary about Serena Williams and other female players (in all sports) ring, sadly, true.

Even if you're not a tennis fan, this novel will grab you. You'll tear through blow-by-blow descriptions of championship matches. Equally entrancing is the audio version.

This is not the first time Reid has written about women and the perils of fame. Her past novels have focused on Hollywood legends, supermodels and elite surfers. Daisy Jones & The Six, which Reid says was inspired by Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, is being adapted as a TV series by Reese Witherspoon's production company and Amazon Studios. But Carrie Soto's deep dive into women's tennis may be the most ambitious.