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. |
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... thoughts into the carefree air of the night, so I steadied myself on the table and walked to the kitchen as quickly as I could, before anybody noticed that I was fighting just to stay on my feet. That unsteadiness wasn't just normal for ...
... thought often of the one tournament I had won at that point, the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington, DC, just over a year earlier, in August 2002, but I didn't focus on the final. Instead, I thought about my semifinal match, in ...
... thought about at night just as much as I lingered on those positive memories from '01 and '02. I saw myself, for example, on the court at Indian Wells, California, in March 2003, losing the final set 0–6 to Gustavo “Guga” Kuerten in the ...
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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 |