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The Benchwarmers #3
Mixed Doubles
Jeff and Andi return to serve up trouble in tennis season, in this standalone third middle-grade book in the Benchwarmers series by #1 New York Times– bestselling sportswriter John Feinstein.
Andi Carillo may have been a soccer prodigy and a basketball superstar, but tennis is where she really shines―she’s eleven years old and nationally ranked. For her, the sport is just for fun, but suddenly agents are crawling out of the woodwork to offer her deals. Her best friend, Jeff Michaels, is a pretty talented player himself, but he’s been dropped into the number-two slot in spite of a perfect record―and he’s getting a little jealous of Andi’s star potential. These teammates will have to lean on each other more than ever if they’re going to handle new emotions, face tough competition, and close out this challenging season with a win.
Mixed Doubles is the exhilarating final volume of this popular middle-grade series by a #1 New York Times –bestselling sportswriter.
Andi Carillo may have been a soccer prodigy and a basketball superstar, but tennis is where she really shines―she’s eleven years old and nationally ranked. For her, the sport is just for fun, but suddenly agents are crawling out of the woodwork to offer her deals. Her best friend, Jeff Michaels, is a pretty talented player himself, but he’s been dropped into the number-two slot in spite of a perfect record―and he’s getting a little jealous of Andi’s star potential. These teammates will have to lean on each other more than ever if they’re going to handle new emotions, face tough competition, and close out this challenging season with a win.
Mixed Doubles is the exhilarating final volume of this popular middle-grade series by a #1 New York Times –bestselling sportswriter.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published April 5, 2022
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25 people want to read
About the author
John Feinstein
75 books591 followersJohn Feinstein was an American sportswriter, author, and sports commentator.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 16, 2023
Was waiting to finish all three books before typing out a review for this series and honestly glad I did. Have mentioned this before, but John Feinstein has been my favorite author since I was a kid and I spent the first the first two books of this series worrying about where the juice went. Wondering if he’d lost something off his fastball, you know? Boy was I wrong. Mixed Doubles is classic Feinstein with stellar sports descriptions, a little mystery, and an investigative reporter (welcome back, Stevie Thomas!) who saves the day. Keep these books coming, king.
October 27, 2022
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus
Andi and her friend Jeff are back in the spring after soccer season (Benchwarmers, 2019) and basketball season (Game Changers, 2020). Tennis is a new sport in their middle school, and the teams are co-ed, with one male and one female coach. It turns out that Andi is an evern better tennis player than she is a soccer or basketball player, which is saying a lot. Jeff is okay, and glad that he can occasionally partner with her in mixed doubles. When Andi's playing brings the attention of agents who are interested in signing her parents, things veer into the realm of investigative journalism. Jeff's father, a sports reporter, thinks it is odd that agents (no matter what they call themselves) are targeting an eleven year old girl, but as more agents approach her, and as other players mention having been approached, the two know there is a story. At the same time, Jeff is demoted to the number two spot on the team, and Gary gets to partner with Andi. It turns out that the one coach, a former tennis player herself, is working provisionally for one of the agents, and puts Gary in to make his father happy and put her in a better position to get hired as a full time agent instead of working as a teacher. Feeling that there is a lot of research that needs to be put into the story, Jeff reaches out to Stevie, a college reporter, and his friend Susan Carol, who was a swimmer in 2012's Go For the Gold. They recommend getting lots of documentation, so Andi (with her parents' permission) meets with three of them to get provisional contracts. Once those are in hand, Jeff's father arranges to have cameras at the championship match so that the agents' tactics can be revealed.
Strengths: There are not very many tennis books out there, and it's a sport that some middle school students play, if not at school, through a club. Having watched Andi in the other books, it's fun to see that tennis is where she really excels! Jeff's crush on her, and her pragmatic view that she's only eleven and too interested in sports to be interested in boys, strikes a good note. The parents show up only when important, and the use of investigative journalism to uncover an unhealthy fascination with very young sports players is not a topic much covered, although it is a favorite of Feinstein's. (2018's The Prodigy is an exceptionally good example.) I apparently don't understand tennis at all, but there are a lot of details about the game, and other competitors and their styles of play, as well as their parents' insistence on getting an agent! This was a solid continuation of an interesting series.
Weaknesses: Jeff and Andi ate a distractingly large amount of pizza. Seriously. In almost every chapter, it seemed. And when they weren't eating pizza, they were going out to eat steak with their parents.
What I really think: Definitely purchasing, since I enjoyed watching Andi play soccer and basketball. Not quite sure if this is the end of the series, or if the two will pick up baseball over the summer to round off the series!
Andi and her friend Jeff are back in the spring after soccer season (Benchwarmers, 2019) and basketball season (Game Changers, 2020). Tennis is a new sport in their middle school, and the teams are co-ed, with one male and one female coach. It turns out that Andi is an evern better tennis player than she is a soccer or basketball player, which is saying a lot. Jeff is okay, and glad that he can occasionally partner with her in mixed doubles. When Andi's playing brings the attention of agents who are interested in signing her parents, things veer into the realm of investigative journalism. Jeff's father, a sports reporter, thinks it is odd that agents (no matter what they call themselves) are targeting an eleven year old girl, but as more agents approach her, and as other players mention having been approached, the two know there is a story. At the same time, Jeff is demoted to the number two spot on the team, and Gary gets to partner with Andi. It turns out that the one coach, a former tennis player herself, is working provisionally for one of the agents, and puts Gary in to make his father happy and put her in a better position to get hired as a full time agent instead of working as a teacher. Feeling that there is a lot of research that needs to be put into the story, Jeff reaches out to Stevie, a college reporter, and his friend Susan Carol, who was a swimmer in 2012's Go For the Gold. They recommend getting lots of documentation, so Andi (with her parents' permission) meets with three of them to get provisional contracts. Once those are in hand, Jeff's father arranges to have cameras at the championship match so that the agents' tactics can be revealed.
Strengths: There are not very many tennis books out there, and it's a sport that some middle school students play, if not at school, through a club. Having watched Andi in the other books, it's fun to see that tennis is where she really excels! Jeff's crush on her, and her pragmatic view that she's only eleven and too interested in sports to be interested in boys, strikes a good note. The parents show up only when important, and the use of investigative journalism to uncover an unhealthy fascination with very young sports players is not a topic much covered, although it is a favorite of Feinstein's. (2018's The Prodigy is an exceptionally good example.) I apparently don't understand tennis at all, but there are a lot of details about the game, and other competitors and their styles of play, as well as their parents' insistence on getting an agent! This was a solid continuation of an interesting series.
Weaknesses: Jeff and Andi ate a distractingly large amount of pizza. Seriously. In almost every chapter, it seemed. And when they weren't eating pizza, they were going out to eat steak with their parents.
What I really think: Definitely purchasing, since I enjoyed watching Andi play soccer and basketball. Not quite sure if this is the end of the series, or if the two will pick up baseball over the summer to round off the series!
March 1, 2022
This is the third book in a series about 11-year-old friends Jeff and Andi, but they don’t need to be read in order. I haven’t read the first two books, and it was fine. (They are about soccer and basketball, respectively.) In this book, Jeff finds out that Andi is REALLY good at tennis. Like Nationally Ranked. Like last year she was ranked in the Top Ten for 10-and-under.
They both try out and join their school’s tennis team, both being ranked #1 in girls and boys, but after the first game, Jeff is dropped to #2 in boys, even though he won his game and the boy who replaced him is okay, but doing more poorly than he is. Jeff is frustrated and confused about this move. Meanwhile, both Andi and Jeff have been approached by sports agents (who continually and amusingly swear, they’re not really an agent) interested in Andi’s tennis career. Eventually they work with Jeff’s dad, a TV sports reporter, and a print news reporter they knew, I’m assuming from a previous book, to expose the slimy tactic and the icky fact of this pursuit, especially in light of teens like Jennifer Capriati (who I remember well from my own preteen tennis days) who went pro young (14 is the minimum age) and burned out.
It’s nice that (mostly) this boy and girl are just friends, but at this age they are starting to be interested in their peers as more than friends. The sports talk is constant. If you’re not interested in tennis, a lot of this will go right over your head and you might zone out. Which is too bad, as the lessons about letting a kid be a kid, pressure from parents, and that some of the tactics (like how sports agents paid Tiger Woods’ DAD instead of Tiger when Tiger was too young to go pro) are Not Cool, are excellent lessons that can apply across a wide variety of sports. But if you are into tennis, this book will be catnip for you!
They both try out and join their school’s tennis team, both being ranked #1 in girls and boys, but after the first game, Jeff is dropped to #2 in boys, even though he won his game and the boy who replaced him is okay, but doing more poorly than he is. Jeff is frustrated and confused about this move. Meanwhile, both Andi and Jeff have been approached by sports agents (who continually and amusingly swear, they’re not really an agent) interested in Andi’s tennis career. Eventually they work with Jeff’s dad, a TV sports reporter, and a print news reporter they knew, I’m assuming from a previous book, to expose the slimy tactic and the icky fact of this pursuit, especially in light of teens like Jennifer Capriati (who I remember well from my own preteen tennis days) who went pro young (14 is the minimum age) and burned out.
It’s nice that (mostly) this boy and girl are just friends, but at this age they are starting to be interested in their peers as more than friends. The sports talk is constant. If you’re not interested in tennis, a lot of this will go right over your head and you might zone out. Which is too bad, as the lessons about letting a kid be a kid, pressure from parents, and that some of the tactics (like how sports agents paid Tiger Woods’ DAD instead of Tiger when Tiger was too young to go pro) are Not Cool, are excellent lessons that can apply across a wide variety of sports. But if you are into tennis, this book will be catnip for you!
October 14, 2023
This was a great change up to what I normally read. I was a tennis player in high school and college and I hardly ever see books about tennis players. Well, THIS is definitely a book for tennis athletes! I'm not sure just anyone would understand the lingo! The scoring alone can get complicated if you're not familiar, but it was an exciting read for me. Brought back lots of great memories of being on the court!
I also relieved to finally read something that wasn't all about family drama. That seems to be a major theme with MG books these days. I loved that the MCs both had supportive parents, even though they did eat pizza a lot! LOL! It was a really fun read. I'm glad I spotted it on the shelf a couple of weeks ago when I took my daughter to the library!
I also relieved to finally read something that wasn't all about family drama. That seems to be a major theme with MG books these days. I loved that the MCs both had supportive parents, even though they did eat pizza a lot! LOL! It was a really fun read. I'm glad I spotted it on the shelf a couple of weeks ago when I took my daughter to the library!
May 8, 2022
Tennis fans will enjoy this book, others probably not so much. Andi and Jeff are eleven year old tennis players who may or may not "like" each other and are working toward winning the middle school tennis championship. Andi is a prodigy who is approached by agents (even though she's only 11) and she and Jeff are almost mortally offended by this. They set up a sting to expose this operation (all while playing tennis and attending to their studies). I found them to be entirely unbelievable as eleven year old characters. Andi was especially unlikable. It's a pass for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 6, 2022
Andi is an excellent tennis player. Despite her young age (11), she is being ranked nationally and therefore is already being pursued by agents. Her friend Jeff is also a very good tennis player although not quite on Andi's level. They are on their school team and decide to do something about these obnoxious agents.
This is a very good look at what goes on behind the scenes with the way agents pursue young talent and how they get around the rules by involving parents and promises of lots of money.
Give this to your Lupica fans.
This is a very good look at what goes on behind the scenes with the way agents pursue young talent and how they get around the rules by involving parents and promises of lots of money.
Give this to your Lupica fans.
January 21, 2024
I was not the target audience for this book, but if I were, I think I would have liked it a lot more. I think it will appeal to those who like realistic fiction and sort of like sports books. There were some cool scenes with investigative journalism as well.
September 15, 2025
Solid last book in this trilogy about young star athletes, but focused a little too much on Andi. But a all-around good book.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews