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 5
... round of the US Open and took Australian Lleyton Hewitt, the number three player in the world at that time, to five sets, before the heat and my work-in-progress conditioning failed me and I ran out of gas, throwing up on the court and ...
... round, and although Kuerten, a gangly, affable, loose-limbed Brazilian, had three French Open titles to his name, he was far more accomplished on clay than he was on hard courts. In addition, he was only one spot higher than I was in ...
... round, pack my bags, and leave town, which is not a satisfying way to spend your time and money. In other matches that year, I was simply blown away by my opponents, sometimes by guys who ranked well below me that in hindsight I didn't ...
... rounds. December has always been extra-dear to me, because in addition to Christmas and the New Year, it brings my birthday (December 28) and my brother's birthday (December 29), the timing of ... round, and later that day, 23 THE STATEMENT.
... round, and later that day, my mother took me and Thomas aside and shared some potentially grim news with us: our father had stayed behind, in part, because he said he had to have a routine hernia operation. But my mother hadn't been ...
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 |