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The Court Jester: My Story
Bahrami also talks about his friendships with some of the great tennis players - Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Ilie Nastase, Henri Leconte - and many others. Inspirational, funny and truly original, this is much more than a sports autobiography. It is the story of one man's success against all the odds, set against the backdrop of a country in the midst of revolution and war. But, above all, it is Mansour Bahrami's undiminished passion for tennis and his amazing adventures on and off the court which make this book an exceptional read.
208 pages, Paperback
First published October 29, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 5, 2022
Well in all honesty I thought this book would have been a lot more comedy, some great humour.
Please don't get me wrong I love watching Mansour, a magician, a great entertainer, a talented tennis player, who makes silly shots look so good, it takes a lot of practise to be that clever.
But as an author maybe not quite so good, yes he explains the difficulties growing up in Iran, the wars, the battles off the court as well as on the court, becoming an French citizen.
Maybe he could have been a top player singles and doubles, he was a natural gifted talent, but much of his time fighting the organisations, also a lot of time enjoying the life off the courts including all the gambling, the girls, the parties, the card games.
The story was told, but lacked the excitement, the fun, the training, how he gained the natural talent for his success now.
I know one match changed his life and his career as the highest paid exibition match player with many top players wanted to play against and with him now.
Just which it had been more entertaining, just a little heavy for me.
Please don't get me wrong I love watching Mansour, a magician, a great entertainer, a talented tennis player, who makes silly shots look so good, it takes a lot of practise to be that clever.
But as an author maybe not quite so good, yes he explains the difficulties growing up in Iran, the wars, the battles off the court as well as on the court, becoming an French citizen.
Maybe he could have been a top player singles and doubles, he was a natural gifted talent, but much of his time fighting the organisations, also a lot of time enjoying the life off the courts including all the gambling, the girls, the parties, the card games.
The story was told, but lacked the excitement, the fun, the training, how he gained the natural talent for his success now.
I know one match changed his life and his career as the highest paid exibition match player with many top players wanted to play against and with him now.
Just which it had been more entertaining, just a little heavy for me.
June 7, 2025
Passionnant. Quelle histoire complètement dingue, remplie de tranches de vie en Iran, en France, un parcours fou, une personnalité unique et rafraichissante qui transparait complètement dans ce livre.
Parfait de lire ça en plein Roland-Garros, toujours en 2025 alors qu'il est au Trophée des Légendes !
Parfait de lire ça en plein Roland-Garros, toujours en 2025 alors qu'il est au Trophée des Légendes !
August 6, 2012
Now, on a point of principle I tend to avoid sportsmen’s biographies whenever possible, particularly if the person in question still happens to be playing. Even for the memoirs of retired athletes I hold some reservations; only in one’s final years can anyone even start to be view themselves in context with the world around them. What does a 24-year-old footballer, who has been playing professionally for a shorter time than most teenagers have been in school, really know of his profession and his life? Yes, he has accomplished a lot, but most people would feel a bit short-changed if they picked up a full-length novel only to find it stopped after a brief prologue and three chapters.
All that said, I did feel compelled to buy the life story of Mansour Bahrami after merely watching him play a Doubles match at Wimbledon. Invitational Doubles. On television. Which he lost. Hardly the sort of game to spark an interest in a player, so why did I specifically go out / stay on the sofa and browse Amazon for anything on this hitherto unknown tennis player from Iran? *
Quite simply, the fun manner in which he played. Funny too, yes, but primarily fun. Just go and have a wander around on YouTube and you will see what I mean. His interaction with his teammate, opponents, umpires and crowd spoke of someone who was just there to have a good time. Something you could say of many people out there who partake in some physical activity or other, granted, but not many of those people would at any point find themselves playing against Pat Cash in a Grand Slam.
So what about the book then?
Well, I admit I slightly misjudged Bahrami’s attitude to tennis: he is far more serious and committed than I had presumed, an indication of which might be gleaned from the first words in his autobiography:
“I fled the mullahs of Iran only to find myself stateless and homeless in Paris. Despite the setbacks, I achieved my dream: to become a professional tennis player who could compete with the best – Borg, McEnroe, Connors and the rest. I even managed to lift that legendary trophy, at the French Open…” **
Thus begins quite a remarkable story. Born into a family fallen from significant landownership into poverty, Mansour Bahrami did not have the start in life which might ease someone into a career in professional tennis. Indeed, his love for the sport developed from running around as an impromptu ball-boy in a sports centre where his father scraped together a living as a gardener. He recounts using brooms to hit balls against walls at the bottom of an empty swimming pool.
Slowly, as his unorthodox ways to develop his natural ability begin to bear fruit (he comments that building his own house from scratch produced a marked improvement in his serve), he evolves as a tennis player. Far from it being a steady tale of progress, his career falters and even severely regresses at various stages – in the years following the revolution in Iran during he dared not play at all – and he often finds himself fluctuating between success and absolute ruin.
As far as autobiographies go in terms of style and whatnot, I probably would not rate ‘The Court Jester’ all that highly. It does not read all that fluidly in English; it is perfectly readable but, and this probably only affects literary snobs like myself who have done a university module on the subject, it is very much as a translation. In fairness, this most likely owes to the original work being French, which itself is the author’s second language. To be honest, it is a flaw I can live with (certainly bearing in mind my own bilingual inadequacies). Perhaps a little further from my tastes is the very matter-of-fact approach to storytelling. For much of the book it is not that much of an issue, but every so often you get a passage such as this, after Mansour had just gone through a potential run through a tournament:
“The folks in the office were doubled up laughing and said to me: “You’re a real big-head, Bahrami. You’ll get knocked out in the first round…” What happened? It went exactly as I had predicted.”
I have never set eyes on the chap in real life, and it may simply be that I do not like this extra dimension to the image I have conjured up of Mansour Bahrami, but such a style does give the impression of quite an arrogant individual. Admittedly, he is just as unabashed about describing some of his mistakes, like trying (and quickly failing) to double up the meagre savings he had managed to bring with him from Iran in a French casino, yet even these he appears to shrug off as if they were unavoidable tragedies. I do not know to what extent this manner of writing is commonplace in autobiographies, sport-related or otherwise, but it just rankles that little bit with me.
Mind you, there is much to be said of a story done in a non-poncy format. It reads very much as one written by a chap who evidently has not undertaken this sort of thing before, and it feels very much like someone eager to demonstrate his love for the game. In between every couple of accounts of various key events in his life, Bahrami throws in an amusing anecdote from the life of a tennis pro: enjoying winding up John ‘You Cannot Be Serious’ McEnroe with trick shots, gorging on a free lunch before realising his match was starting early, waiting in a hospital with Guy Forget – another tennis player – during a tournament for their respective wives to give birth. If it is not an anecdote, it is a musing on the game itself and his relationship with it.
This is what makes the book stand out in particular for me. These ponderings reveal a man committed to his sport, but not to the utter detriment of his life outside it. Having fled from Iran to France he refuses to apply for asylum – which would have allowed him to travel to more tournaments – so as he does not burn his bridges with his homeland. Thus is he able to return a few years later to see his father on his deathbed.
Instead of dwelling too much on the considerable obstacles thrown in the path of his career, or on those key matches which did not go his way, Mansour simply seems to shrug his shoulders and continue his story. He freely acknowledges that he suffers “from a serious handicap” which would have would have fatally undermined any attempt to join the top dogs: “I like the beautiful game too much!” He writes just as much about matches he lost as those he won, focusing on ones in which he felt were the best games, rather than on the ones in which he played his best game. In his own words:
“The passion for tennis has always consumed me, and it has often overwhelmed the comptetitor within me. On many occasions I have sacrificed winning for the sake of a fine piece of theatre to entertain to the crowd or to make sure a match lasted longer … I know, too, that the best players enjoy playing with me. What’s even better is that they enjoy watching me play. That, for me is the best form of appreciation.”
If you are a diehard advocate of fancy English language, ‘The Court Jester’ might make you wince every so often. Stylistically, it could do with some refining. I reckon though that this is worth ignoring for the sake of the substance. It is an intriguing tale of fighting the odds and, in contrast to what the public see at the top of the game, doing so with a big smile ***. I reckon it is worth picking up for its price, and it does not take all that long to read.
Mind you, I may well be biased in his favour. He is a chap after my own heart:
“I had no compunction, either, about throwing myself to the floor to reach an otherwise impossible ball”
Not a proper sport unless you bruise your knees.
* Aside from his rather splendid moustache.
** Borg, McEnroe, Connors – pretty much the only names to which I could claim any semblance of prior knowledge. Do not be put off by a lack of knowledge of French tennis in the 80s and 90s!
*** With a splendid moustache on top.
All that said, I did feel compelled to buy the life story of Mansour Bahrami after merely watching him play a Doubles match at Wimbledon. Invitational Doubles. On television. Which he lost. Hardly the sort of game to spark an interest in a player, so why did I specifically go out / stay on the sofa and browse Amazon for anything on this hitherto unknown tennis player from Iran? *
Quite simply, the fun manner in which he played. Funny too, yes, but primarily fun. Just go and have a wander around on YouTube and you will see what I mean. His interaction with his teammate, opponents, umpires and crowd spoke of someone who was just there to have a good time. Something you could say of many people out there who partake in some physical activity or other, granted, but not many of those people would at any point find themselves playing against Pat Cash in a Grand Slam.
So what about the book then?
Well, I admit I slightly misjudged Bahrami’s attitude to tennis: he is far more serious and committed than I had presumed, an indication of which might be gleaned from the first words in his autobiography:
“I fled the mullahs of Iran only to find myself stateless and homeless in Paris. Despite the setbacks, I achieved my dream: to become a professional tennis player who could compete with the best – Borg, McEnroe, Connors and the rest. I even managed to lift that legendary trophy, at the French Open…” **
Thus begins quite a remarkable story. Born into a family fallen from significant landownership into poverty, Mansour Bahrami did not have the start in life which might ease someone into a career in professional tennis. Indeed, his love for the sport developed from running around as an impromptu ball-boy in a sports centre where his father scraped together a living as a gardener. He recounts using brooms to hit balls against walls at the bottom of an empty swimming pool.
Slowly, as his unorthodox ways to develop his natural ability begin to bear fruit (he comments that building his own house from scratch produced a marked improvement in his serve), he evolves as a tennis player. Far from it being a steady tale of progress, his career falters and even severely regresses at various stages – in the years following the revolution in Iran during he dared not play at all – and he often finds himself fluctuating between success and absolute ruin.
As far as autobiographies go in terms of style and whatnot, I probably would not rate ‘The Court Jester’ all that highly. It does not read all that fluidly in English; it is perfectly readable but, and this probably only affects literary snobs like myself who have done a university module on the subject, it is very much as a translation. In fairness, this most likely owes to the original work being French, which itself is the author’s second language. To be honest, it is a flaw I can live with (certainly bearing in mind my own bilingual inadequacies). Perhaps a little further from my tastes is the very matter-of-fact approach to storytelling. For much of the book it is not that much of an issue, but every so often you get a passage such as this, after Mansour had just gone through a potential run through a tournament:
“The folks in the office were doubled up laughing and said to me: “You’re a real big-head, Bahrami. You’ll get knocked out in the first round…” What happened? It went exactly as I had predicted.”
I have never set eyes on the chap in real life, and it may simply be that I do not like this extra dimension to the image I have conjured up of Mansour Bahrami, but such a style does give the impression of quite an arrogant individual. Admittedly, he is just as unabashed about describing some of his mistakes, like trying (and quickly failing) to double up the meagre savings he had managed to bring with him from Iran in a French casino, yet even these he appears to shrug off as if they were unavoidable tragedies. I do not know to what extent this manner of writing is commonplace in autobiographies, sport-related or otherwise, but it just rankles that little bit with me.
Mind you, there is much to be said of a story done in a non-poncy format. It reads very much as one written by a chap who evidently has not undertaken this sort of thing before, and it feels very much like someone eager to demonstrate his love for the game. In between every couple of accounts of various key events in his life, Bahrami throws in an amusing anecdote from the life of a tennis pro: enjoying winding up John ‘You Cannot Be Serious’ McEnroe with trick shots, gorging on a free lunch before realising his match was starting early, waiting in a hospital with Guy Forget – another tennis player – during a tournament for their respective wives to give birth. If it is not an anecdote, it is a musing on the game itself and his relationship with it.
This is what makes the book stand out in particular for me. These ponderings reveal a man committed to his sport, but not to the utter detriment of his life outside it. Having fled from Iran to France he refuses to apply for asylum – which would have allowed him to travel to more tournaments – so as he does not burn his bridges with his homeland. Thus is he able to return a few years later to see his father on his deathbed.
Instead of dwelling too much on the considerable obstacles thrown in the path of his career, or on those key matches which did not go his way, Mansour simply seems to shrug his shoulders and continue his story. He freely acknowledges that he suffers “from a serious handicap” which would have would have fatally undermined any attempt to join the top dogs: “I like the beautiful game too much!” He writes just as much about matches he lost as those he won, focusing on ones in which he felt were the best games, rather than on the ones in which he played his best game. In his own words:
“The passion for tennis has always consumed me, and it has often overwhelmed the comptetitor within me. On many occasions I have sacrificed winning for the sake of a fine piece of theatre to entertain to the crowd or to make sure a match lasted longer … I know, too, that the best players enjoy playing with me. What’s even better is that they enjoy watching me play. That, for me is the best form of appreciation.”
If you are a diehard advocate of fancy English language, ‘The Court Jester’ might make you wince every so often. Stylistically, it could do with some refining. I reckon though that this is worth ignoring for the sake of the substance. It is an intriguing tale of fighting the odds and, in contrast to what the public see at the top of the game, doing so with a big smile ***. I reckon it is worth picking up for its price, and it does not take all that long to read.
Mind you, I may well be biased in his favour. He is a chap after my own heart:
“I had no compunction, either, about throwing myself to the floor to reach an otherwise impossible ball”
Not a proper sport unless you bruise your knees.
* Aside from his rather splendid moustache.
** Borg, McEnroe, Connors – pretty much the only names to which I could claim any semblance of prior knowledge. Do not be put off by a lack of knowledge of French tennis in the 80s and 90s!
*** With a splendid moustache on top.
April 14, 2017
Mansour Bahrami is without a doubt the most entertaining and fun tennis player through tennis history. This autobiography is almost as entertaining to read as it is to watch Mansour play a tennis match. Even though there are many sad parts in this book Mansour writes and describes everything in such a way that I often ended up laughing out, which made me feel a bit guilty sometimes.
March 13, 2024
Having been lucky enough to watch Mansour Bahrami play at the Royal Albert Hall I was intrigued to read this book.
From very humble beginnings and through a resilient approach to life, the spectacle that is Bahrami’s take on tennis is a sight to behold!
A quick, easy read that gives some insight into Bahrami’ journey.
From very humble beginnings and through a resilient approach to life, the spectacle that is Bahrami’s take on tennis is a sight to behold!
A quick, easy read that gives some insight into Bahrami’ journey.
June 26, 2022
I'm a fan of tennis since childhood. Mansour Bahrami's antics on the senior ATP tour are very fun to watch and readily accessible on youtube. His background story of being an Iranian tennis champion in Iran during the Shah's regime and then a destitute emigre in France after he fled the Islamic Revolutionary government makes for an interesting memoir. The early stuff from his childhood, his laborious ascent from Oliver Twist urchin practicing in secret on the pristine tennis courts of a private club with a makeshift tennis racket that was really a broom is especially moving. Later, his account of how he miraculously obtained a visa to go to France but had to sleep on the streets after losing all his money at a Nice casino is shocking. He dealt with a lot of hardship, including much anti-Iranian racism and prejudice on the ATP circuit but always kept his chin up. He also was the beneficiary of much kindness and long lasting friendship. But Bahrami is not a 100% reliable narrator and the farther he gets in the story of his life, the murkier and more implausible his experiences become. I think he likes he embellish his tales, not because he has some malicious motive but he is, as the French would say, a bon raconteur, a good spinner of tales. He also likes to name drop a lot, as if he is trying to prove his importance to the readers by pointing out how many famous friends he has, like Yannick Noah and other famous tennis figures of the era. Bahrami had one shot at greatness after being chosen as a wild card for the Roland-Garros Grand Slam and blew it. He makes a lot of excuses, which I thought was kind of lame. He is one of those people who, if he wins, he pins his success squarely on his own shoulders, but if he loses, it's because of external factors. Not that uncommon among athletes. Still, overall I would recommend it for people who like to read successful immigrant stories, have 80s nostalgia or are fans of tennis.
December 27, 2025
An inspiring story (leaving Iran, only being able to play in France, and yet making it as a pro and making a slam final) about a very entertaining man. Littered with anecdotes about the stars of yesteryear.
However the stories often feel rushed, we barely get to know Mansour's friends, family, or other players. There are also several glaring errors (fact-checking as well as typos) which are very irritating. Enjoyable, but not as brilliant as it promised.
However the stories often feel rushed, we barely get to know Mansour's friends, family, or other players. There are also several glaring errors (fact-checking as well as typos) which are very irritating. Enjoyable, but not as brilliant as it promised.
September 16, 2020
Uplifting and inspirational book. You don't need to be a tennis fan to enjoy. I highly recommend 😀
January 9, 2014
I thought this was a really good read. I like tennis and I saw this guy play an amazing match at Wimbledon so I was very interested to find out about his very difficult but interesting life. Now that I've read it I hope I get to see him play again.
March 9, 2024
Hearing the full story from the man himself was an eye opener. He was a bit of a naughty boy but a tennis genius none the less.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews