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
... pretty good living, all while chasing the sun around the globe to play wherever it happened to be summer, or at the very least, where it was hot. Being where I was, it was easy to adopt an aw-shucks attitude about my career. After ...
... ”—drawing it out like Ed McMahon introducing Johnny Carson, the place went stark-raving mad. The crowd gave me a pretty rousing reception as well. From the time I turned pro, I always loved that moment 14 BREAKING BACK.
... pretty sight. Even less pretty was that the most memorable part of that match for most people was not my performance but an outburst from Lleyton when he accused a linesman of making calls in my favor because we shared the same skin ...
... pretty happy there, so the thought of going back didn't bother me too much. No, my personal abyss wasn't the prospect of losing matches, or fading out of the top hundred, or being relegated to the outer courts. It was not doing as well ...
... pretty serious network of dreadlocks protruding Medusa-style from my head. It had been in place, in some form or another, since my college days, so it was easy to spot me around the grounds of a tournament, even from a considerable ...
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 |