Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My LifeHarper Collins, 2009 M03 17 - 288 pages James Blake's life was getting better every day. A rising tennis star and People magazine's Sexiest Male Athlete of 2002, he was leading a charmed life and loving every minute of it. But all that ended in May 2004, when Blake fractured his neck in an on-court freak accident. As he recovered, his father—who had been the inspiration for his tennis career—lost his battle with stomach cancer. Shortly after his father's death, Blake was dealt a third blow when he contracted zoster, a rare virus that paralyzed half of his face and threatened to end his already jeopardized career. In Breaking Back, Blake provides a remarkable account of how he came back from this terrible heartbreak and self-doubt to become one of the top tennis players in the world. A story of strength, passion, courage, and the unbreakable bonds between a father and son, Breaking Back is a celebration of one extraordinary athlete's indomitable spirit and his inspiring ability to find hope in the bleakest of times. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 6
... months as one long get-together, although the gatherings took different forms: sometimes we'd all just hang and catch up, sometimes we'd watch a ball game, and sometimes we played poker. One Tuesday in September, it was a poker night ...
... months, or I could have hung up my racket for good. I could have pursued a totally different, much more conventional, life, and I probably would have been very happy to do so. But I didn't. Instead, I worked hard and turned my life ...
... month of our sport's notoriously stingy off-season. Come January, those of us who aren't nursing injuries will flock ... months. Success in professional sports is a funny thing. You might say that pro athletes live with three certainties ...
... month presents. Like many young athletes, I was having too much fun for such weighty introspection. The ATP tour is like a kind of traveling neverland, where no one forces you to grow up. So a lot of the guys are indistinguishable from ...
... month of December often exposes these fluctuations in a pro-tennis player's confidence, and while December 2002 had brought my confidence and my ranking to an all-time high, by the end of the 2003 season, it was sinking like a stone. It ...
Contents
1 | |
7 | |
It Could Be Worse | 35 |
Requiem for a Superman | 63 |
Five Minutes of Hitting | 115 |
Plan B | 147 |
If You Can Win One Set | 175 |
You Can Win Two 175 7 Fire It Up One Time Bam 203 8 Getting Better 241 Epilogue 257 Glossary | 265 |