Lucky Loser: Adventures in Tennis and Comedy

From a host of The Daily Show and stand-up comic, Michael Kosta, comes a wildly funny and insightful comedian memoir about his unlikely journey from professional tennis player (#864 in the world) to professional comedian (there’s no ranking system in comedy but he’s probably . . . top 50?).

Before Michael Kosta was performing stand-up comedy specials and hosting The Daily Show, he was a professional tennis “star,” reaching the lofty heights of the #864 ranked men’s singles player in the world. Stop laughing. That’s better than your world ranking. As a tennis pro, Kosta traveled across the globe, competing in such exotic locales as the Netherlands, Tokyo, and even rural Illinois before making a career change to pursue a more stable and predictable career: comedy.

In a completely unexpected and wild journey through the backwaters of professional tennis, Kosta shows the unlikely ways life on the court prepared him for life in front of a microphone. Like comedy, tennis is brutally competitive, and most people lose at it. Unlike comedy, no one in tennis puts a gun on the table as they count out your earnings in twenty-dollar bills at the end of the night.

And then there are the things that have more to do with what happens to you—and what you end up learning—as part of growing up. Topics include: how to properly discard an unwanted European hard-boiled egg, giving CPR to your dead grandpa, cringe-worthy “sex” in the Red Light District, crying so hard in a car that strangers call the cops, and also happy things like what it feels like when your dreams come true. 

From misadventures in tennis to the humbling setbacks of comedy, Lucky Loser is a heart-filled sports memoir of making your own luck, the universal experience of failure, and the many ways in which we all inevitably lose on the way to success.

Lucky Loser includes a 16-page photo insert.

One unlikely career path. Two brutally competitive worlds.

• Behind-the-Scenes of Pro Tennis: Go inside the pro tour's backwaters, where a world ranking of #864 means competing in such exotic locales as the Netherlands, Tokyo, and even rural Illinois.
• From the Court to the Stage: Discover the surprising ways life as an athlete prepares you for stand-up comedy—and why no one in tennis pays you with twenty-dollar bills while a gun sits on the table.
• Hilarious Coming-of-Age Stories: Follow a series of cringe-worthy and heartfelt misadventures, from giving CPR to a dead grandpa to navigating the Red Light District in Amsterdam.
• An Underdog's Guide to Failure: A surprisingly insightful and funny take on making your own luck and learning that losing is an inevitable—and necessary—part of success.