Playing The Moldovans At Tennis

Tony and Arthur are watching the football match between England and Moldova. The conversation turns to tennis. Arthur vowing that most natural sportsmen could pick up a racket and, play a good game. And so a childish bet was proffered that Tony couldn't play all of the Moldovan national football team at tennis and beat them all.

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All I knew about Moldova were the names of eleven men printed on the inside back pages of my newspaper. None of them sounded to me like they were any good at tennis ...' An eccentric wager finds Tony Hawks, a man who loves an unusual challenge, bound for the little-known Eastern European state of Moldova. His mission: to track down members of the country's football team and persuade them to play him at tennis. The bizarre quest ultimately has little to do with tennis or football, but instead turns into an extraordinary journey involving the Moldovan underworld, gypsies, chronic power shortages, near kidnap, and a surprisingly tender relationship with his host family.