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 9
... 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 and gathered around my dining room table were a bunch of ...
... took me a few Decembers before I really came to understand the abyss that the 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 ...
... gown for my graduation photo in the spring of 2001. But something funny happened in my sophomore year that took me by surprise: I became the number one college tennis player in the country. It was a hard fact to 11 THE STATEMENT.
... 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 cramping. It was not a ...
... took stock of 2003, there was no escaping the fact that I hadn't passed many road signs to success in the fastexpiring year. Rather, I had disappointments that stuck in my throat, that I thought about at night just as much as I lingered ...
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 |