Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.342092
EAN: 9780307383297
ISBN: 0307383296
Label: Crown
Manufacturer: Crown
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2008-06-10
Publisher: Crown
Release Date: 2008-06-10
Studio: Crown

Pete Sampras is arguably the greatest tennis player ever, a man whose hard-nosed work ethic led to an unprecedented number one world ranking for 286 weeks, and whose prodigious talent made possible a record-setting fourteen Grand Slam titles. While his more vocal rivals sometimes grabbed the headlines, Pete always preferred to let his racket do the talking.

Until now.

In A Champion’s Mind, the tennis great who so often exhibited visible discomfort with letting people “inside his head” finally opens up. An athletic prodigy, Pete resolved from his earliest playing days never to let anything get in the way of his love for the game. But while this single-minded determination led to tennis domination, success didn’t come without a price. The constant pressure of competing on the world’s biggest stage—in the unblinking eye of a media machine hungry for more than mere athletic greatness—took its toll.

Here for the first time Pete speaks freely about what it was like to possess what he calls “the Gift.” He writes about the personal trials he faced—including the death of a longtime coach and confidant—and the struggles he gutted his way through while being seemingly on top of the world. Among the book’s most riveting scenes are an early devastating loss to Stefan Edberg that led Pete to make a monastic commitment to delivering on his natural talent; a grueling, four-hour-plus match against Alex Corretja during which Pete became seriously ill; fierce on-court battles with rival and friend Andre Agassi; and the triumphant last match of Pete’s career at the finals of the 2002 U.S. Open.

In A Champion’s Mind, one of the most revered, successful, and intensely private players in the history of tennis offers an intimate look at the life of an elite athlete.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Fast reading - good book.
Comment: You'll probably will only read this book if you're a tennis afficionado.
If so, you will read it in the blink of an eye, because this is such an entertaining biography about one of the greatest players of all time. Don't get high expectations: it's all about Pete's tennis life. You'll get only glimpses of his feelings outside a tennis court. And tha't's right for me, I don't care about gossip and Pete makes it clear in the introduction that this is not a "score-settling" book.

Very good, almost obligatory reading if you enjoy tennis.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, another grand Slam for Pete Sampras
Comment: Pete Sampras was not only a great and exceptional tennis player, but also a great athlete and competitor in Sports History.
In this book he gives a very great insight of his life in the top, the struggle that every champion has to carry on. It is great how he handled the losses. A big Champion like him can teach that even for him life was not always ALL about winning, but also dealing with losses.
Another very important concept that Pete Sampras remarks, are his core values, learned from his family. This is a key concept that many people omit and just focus on the results, not the things that took Pete Sampras to be the best Tennis player ever.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: An interesting read
Comment: It was interesting reading about Pete Sampras' different tennis matches, but I was hoping for more about Pete's family and stuff about his life other than tennis.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Fabulous book from the greatest tennis player ever
Comment: I am Pete Sampras` fan and of course I enjoyed this book a lot!
I knew about most of the matches and important events, so it was really interesting to read Pete`s view of things.
And at the end I had a feeling, that the book was too thin:)

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: A true champion
Comment: Pete Sampras is my all time favorite tennis player and this book was a unique opportunity to gain insight into the personality and make up of one of the greatest champions of all time. It is hard to put the book down, once you start reading it. I would definitely recommend it to tennis players and non-tennis players alike.

---