I loved the cover and was all in for a tennis romance and the story was fine if incredibly predictable, but the actual writing style was just so mediocre that it didn't live up to my expectations enough to be more than tepidly okay at best, and at worst I felt like I'd have been better off just reading some tennis RPF fanfiction instead. (The refusal to use contractions in dialogue! The constant reliance on "brat" as their sex thing, especially for a character who it's agreed in the text supposedly doesn't have a submissive bone in her body! I could go on, but I won't.) Overall not the worst book I've ever read and fine to pass the time with if you're into this sort of thing, but on balance I can't help but regret having spent any of my remaining conscious hours on this planet with it when there are so many other better books I could have been reading instead.

Love a good tennis romance - they’re hard to come by! Went into depth about the matches/tennis mentality which I loved. Some parts drug on a little which made it feel a tad bit slow. I did find the characters really like able!

This book was refreshing because the sport was tennis instead of the usual hockey which is EVERYWHERE. I'm so happy to have a book with a different sport! I wasn't super thrilled with the characters- I couldn't connect with anyone, but Dylan was alright. Overall it was a fairly decent book.

Back in the day, I was an avid Rafael Nadal fan. I've watched a lot of tennis and I know the sport well, which is what drew me to this book.

Jones' fundamentals are there. The writing is smooth and the sexytimes are spicy and fun. My problems with this book were mainly structural. It felt a bit like a new director who doesn't know where to point the camera.

(The following doesn't touch on any events not mentioned in the blurb but will discuss when they happen, if you're sensitive to spoilers in that sense.)

The conflict of the story, to me, is Dylan's desire to win a title with Oliver as her coach, versus them exploring their romantic interest in each other. There's an inherent conflict of interest there that could be really compelling.

Instead, the beginning part of the book feels very draggy - the MCs are barely on page together and mostly just banter on the phone. Some of their conversations are completely inane, about DVDs and cooking and whatnot. Oliver doesn't agree to coach Dylan until 40% into book, and they don't make it onto a tennis court until almost the 60% mark. That's where the story starts trucking... but it's just way, way t0o late.

Which brings me to Oliver. Oliver is nice all the way through, and he and Dylan get along great from the jump. He doesn't seem to be feeling any angst about ending his career as a player. He's just very bland and underdeveloped as a character and as a love interest.

There are also some book features that I didn't love, like the song titles ahead of every chapter and the "dicktionary" listing all explicit scenes. The latter is something I've never seen before and not something I needed or wanted. Romance is an adult genre and a general content rating should be sufficient.

If you're looking for a good tennis romance, I recommend Olivia Dade's 40-Love with a pro-turned-instructor MMC. In her Harlequin days, Nora Roberts also wrote a tennis romance, Opposites Attract, featuring two active pro players across a season.

I loved this book so much!!!! Like I knew I was going to, but somehow it was even better than I could have ever imagined?? Friends to lovers is the superior trope and this was a PERFECT example of why!! Not to mention a sports romance where they’re both athletes AND he becomes her coach?? And then they were roommates too!? AND SHES GRUMPY AND HES STRAIGHT SUNSHINE!! I’ve loved Meg’s other books, but there’s something special about this one!!

I loved watching Dylan’s character arc, even starting back in the last book! She wasn’t necessarily someone I was rooting for at first, but then I REALLY WAS. She’s just a girl who loves her sport!!! And she misses home!! And she just wants to win!!! Her and Oliver finding each other?? Right when they both really needed someone?? It was SO PERFECT! They were so sweeeeeet! How easily they became friends, how important they became to each other!! Their chemistry was perfect, the tension!! Their banter!! Everything about them made my heart so happy!!

And Oliver Anderson really is that man!!! He’s a REAL BIG SOFTIE WHO LOVES HIS GIRL!! He tried so hard to fight his feelings because he KNEW how important her career was to her! And he stuck up for her! He watched out for her!! (Maybe a little too much but it was really out of LOVE!!!) He cared so deeply for her in so many ways, and seeing someone who could really understand what she was going through, and be there for her when she really needed it was so perfect!

I loved this book! And I cannot wait for what’s next!!

Thank you to Avon for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I am a sucker for sports romance & this one was no different! I want to be upfront & say I know absolutely NOTHING about tennis outside of Wii Sports, and even then, my go-to was bowling. Meg did a wonderful job at making tennis feel approachable and a main portion of the story without going so into detail that I couldn’t figure out what was happening in the story.

The coach-player dynamic was a new one for me, and I really enjoyed it! This book meets a lot of my favorite troupes including: pining, one bed, friends to lovers, competitive/bet.

Just as a note: while this is a stand-alone if you are planning to read this book first, it does give significant plot points away from book one. Sometimes just characters cross over, and while that is the case, there are also references to the previous story in big ways.

I enjoyed this! Growing up watching the pro tennis tour (and playing high school/college tennis), it was so fun to read a romance revolve around a professional tennis player and her coach. Reviewing this as a 3 star read only because I didn't feel incredibly invested in Dylan and Oliver's relationship. The plot felt long and repetitive with no real story progression.

i LOVED this! the relationship between oliver and dylan was so healthy and beautiful. i loved the plot itself and I just love this world. all the scottie & nico crumbs were amazing. thanks so much to Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager!

Thank you to @avonbooks & @netgalley for an eARC!

Last summer, I watched Challengers and became ✨obsessed✨ with finding a spicy tennis romance to fill the tennis shaped hole in my heart and Meg Jones wrote exactly that with her Game, Set, and Match series!

Clean Point is a new fav and I’ve been (not so) patiently waiting for the follow up and for Dylan’s story! Game Point had me hooked from the start!!

>> Dylan is done with being second best and maybe tennis altogether until she makes a bet with Oliver Anderson (a pro tennis peer!) who thinks she’s got another grand slam title in her future.

Oliver, oh Oliver, my sweet, British, golden retriever mmc. (Side note: I bet the audiobook for this will be so good 🥵). I loved the banter, the tennis, the forced proximity and the overall dynamic. Really mostly everything about this was perfectly right.

By the end I was stressed the heck out for Dylan but what I appreciated was that the drama was outside of the romantic relationship. No funny business messing with our main duo!

Sports romances just hit different and I can’t wait to see what Meg continues to do because I love her books so dang much!

This was a good romance book and gave me almost everything I was hoping for. I've gotten more and more into tennis and so I was so happy to be able to read this book.

Dylan is a world-class tennis player who can never quite seal the deal and win her first Grand Slam. After years of reaching the finals and falling short, constantly changing techniques and coaches, Dylan is at a crossroads and needs to make some decisions.

Dylan struggles with confidence, anxiety, homesickness, and a lack of purpose—issues that feel very genuine. I believe these are problems that plague professional athletes constantly. I’m also a sucker for books that are broken up by news articles, interviews, etc. I love getting that alternative point of view.

I also enjoyed the simultaneous but perpendicular career changes that Dylan and Oliver face together. Her career continues in the same vein but evolves, while his morphs into something completely different. I liked how their differences didn’t hinder their friends-to-lovers story but instead enhanced how much they care for each other. I appreciated that they kept their careers separate from their relationship—no jealousy, no drama, just straightforward communication: “This is what’s best, and it doesn’t mean anything nefarious.”

I didn’t read the first book in the series, but I will definitely be checking it out and will absolutely finish the rest of the series upon release!

Thank you to NetGalley, Avon, and Harper Voyager for the ARC.

What a great story! I love tennis and romance novels and this was the perfect pairing. Dylan, a top pro athlete who always makes the finals but never quite wins is questioning her career when she meets Oliver, also a pro player and recent winner of the US Open. They forge an adorable friendship and, that turns to him being her coach, and then turns to love. I can't quite put into words quite how much I enjoyed this book and will absolutely read again.

I think the first book in this series was a better fit for my tastes. This one took me a while to get into but I did really enjoy reading about Dylan overcoming her anxieties and challenges. I do feel like as a character motivated reader it took some time for me to actually like the characters though. The slower pacing also didn’t really help my case either but overall a good time.

Dylan Bailey, una jugadora australiana que, tras perder su décimo Grand Slam, decide retirarse. Sin embargo, un desafío irresistible de su amigo y colega Oliver Anderson la hace reconsiderar su decisión: si pierde el próximo torneo, podrá quedarse con su trofeo del US Open y alejarse del tenis para siempre. Pero hay un giro inesperado: Oliver no solo será su amigo, sino también su entrenador.

A medida que entrenan juntos, la química entre ellos se vuelve innegable, aunque intentan mantener su relación estrictamente profesional. La tensión, la complicidad y el apoyo mutuo hacen que su conexión se fortalezca dentro y fuera de la cancha, obligándolos a enfrentar no solo sus propios miedos, sino también los sentimientos que han intentado ignorar.



~


Al principio me costó un poco engancharme porque recordaba a la Dylan de Clean Point. Si bien nunca fue realmente una mala persona… bueno, sí fue bastante dura con Scottie. Pero, en cierta manera, su desagrado estaba justificado, ya que todo apuntaba a que Scottie había hecho trampa en Wimbledon .
En este libro, se entiende mejor la reacción de Dylan ante lo ocurrido en la historia anterior. La vemos estancada, enojada consigo misma, bloqueada y al borde del retiro porque siente que ya no puede más… hasta que conoce a Oliver, y ambos terminan ayudándose mutuamente.

Disfruté mucho la lectura, pero no le doy una calificación mayor porque hubo un detalle que me incomodó. Al principio, Dylan cree que Oliver sigue casado y, aun así, no le importa acercarse a él. Obviamente, luego se revela que ya estaba divorciado, pero en ese momento ella no lo sabía, y el hecho de que eso no la detuviera me bajoneó un poco (odio las infidelidades).

Además del romance, el libro aborda temas como la salud mental en el deporte, la presión del alto rendimiento y la importancia de encontrar un espacio seguro para ser uno mismo.


Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this arc.

I wanted to like this book but I DNF at 15%. I just couldn’t get into it.

In this book, Dylan and Oliver decide to tackle their problems together: Oliver will help Dylan win another grand slam title, and Dylan will help him rediscover his love for the sport. As they both unlock a new level of understanding their shared sport and each other, they can't keep their chemistry off the courts.

Something about me: I will always love a comeback story in a sports romance. Especially a tennis one. Both in books and movies, something about the sport and the interwoven social politics of a grand slam tournament will always intrigue me despite never have played the sport myself.

(Actual: 4.75⭐, rounded up) Absolutely love Meg Jones and devoured her debut novel + CLEAN POINT (the first book in this series)..... which is why I was so, so excited to get approved for GAME POINT and, let me just say: It did NOT disappoint. I devoured this read so quickly LOL, I'm surprised with myself even. CLEAN POINT is a Friends-to-Lovers, sports-centric [tennis] romance comprised of the perfect balance. imo, of heart, humor*, spice, and some good ol' fashioned angst (*Meg is hella funny irl and I truly just love seeing her sense of humor shine from the pages of her books). CLEAN POINT is a slow-burning romance, which I've always loved *so long as it's done right*— and here, with Meg, it is. The chemistry and tension between Dylan and Oliver is straight ACES, I thoroughly enjoyed watching how their whip-smart banter and emotional ties as friends slowly turned into something more. Furthermore, as always, I LOVE stories that resolve miscommunications quickly (if there are any) + do *not* shoe-horn in a 3rd-act breakup, both of which CLEAN POINT successfully avoided, so it truly did scratch that specific part of me as a reader in the best of ways. Highly recommend this to all my romcom lovers FOR SURE, this book is a true win and I can't wait to see what Meg comes out with next!

Cute sports romance which I enjoy. I had never read one that focused on tennis. It didn’t get too much into the sports that it dragged the story down or needed a lot of prior information about the sport. Cute romance story with a few spicy pieces along the way.

This was a cute one! The characters were fun and the chemistry was good. Just enough sports talk to be interesting but not too much.

4⭐️
Thank you NetGalley for this arc. This was an easy and fun read, I love sports romances and this was both my first tennis book (didn’t realize it was book 2 until later) and first Meg Jones book. I plan to go read book 1 now too. I really enjoyed reading about Dylan working through her anxiety’s and of course loved Dylan and Oliver’s friends to lovers story.