The Prince of Tennis, Vol. 9

When Eiji succumbs to exhaustion, the school's chances of securing the crucial win over St. Rudolph's fades with each drop of their hard-earned sweat. Then, Seishun's setback turns into an even more daunting situation when their team equalizer, Ryoma Echizen, treads unfamiliar waters in his match.

A member of the tennis club in junior and senior high-school, Konomi submitted his work to Weekly Shonen Jump after graduation from university and was debuted in a special edition of the magazine in 1993 with TETSUJIN SEKAI ICHI KATAI OTOKO. In 1997, his COOL ~ RENTAL BODYGUARD manga became serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump, followed by THE PRINCE OF TENNIS in 1992. Because of THE PRINCE OF TENNIS, the number of children in Japan who have taken up tennis as a sport has increased exponentially, and the tennis club has become one of the more popular school clubs in junior high today, creating a huge boom for the game. An anime version of THE PRINCE OF TENNIS was created in 2001, and is still going strong.