| SERENAWILLIAMS | Legendary athlete who wrote that "evolving away from tennis" was "the hardest thing that [she] could ever imagine" (August, 2022) |
| ENTIRELY | Pans away from tennis player completely (8) |
| INCOMETAX | "The hardest thing in the world to understand," according to Albert Einstein |
| DIAMOND | The hardest thing before match - it's achieved years later (7,7) |
| WEDDING | The hardest thing before match - it's achieved years later (7,7) |
| PINGPONG | Table tennis was invented in England in the early 20th century and was originally called ___-___, a trade name (4-4) |
| MANDRAGORA | In 1.5, Cleopatra mourns the fact that Antony has gone back to Rome and that she doesn't when he will return. She mentions a poison that she could ingest. What is the poison she mentions? |
| CINDERELLA | She's the girl whose fairy godmother magically turned a pumpkin into a carriage so that she could go to the ball |
| KATYPERRY | She joked that she could never sing a certain hit song of hers again after hearing Kelly Clarkson's "Kellyoke" version of it last week |
| DOUGLASADAMS | Sci-fi writer who wrote that the answer to the universe is the number 42 |
| LOUREED | New York iconoclast who wrote that his mission was to "bring the sensitivities of the novel to rock music" |
| AGASSI | Autobiographer who wrote that tennis is "the loneliest sport" |
| MCLUHAN | Marshall who wrote that "the medium is the message" |
| GLOVEBOX | Legend gets nothing from tennis, from fight in the ring or from one of the handy types in golf? (8) |
| GOAT | Title bestowed upon a legendary athlete ... or reserved for an athlete who blew the game |
| ANON | We don't know who wrote that body of work: initial unseen (4) |
| JOHNBETJEMAN | Poet Laureate, who wrote that Slough 'isn't fit for humans now' (4,8) |
| ADAM | Smith who wrote that landlords "love to reap where they never sowed" |
| KEATS | Poet John who wrote that "mortality / Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep" |
| PELE | Athlete who wrote the memoir "My Life and the Beautiful Game" |
