Break Point (eBook)

THE SECRET DIARY OF A PRO TENNIS PLAYER

Dan Markowitz, Vince Spadea (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2010 | 1. Auflage
295 Seiten
ECW Press (Verlag)
978-1-55490-270-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Spanning 13 professional seasons, this colorful and personal account of one man's life on the grueling pro tennis circuit pulls no punches. As one of only two players over the age of 30 ranked in the top 20 players in the world, Vince Spadea offers an inside perspective on his life as a world-class athlete: 11-month seasons, 68 tournaments, five continents, four court surfaces, and countless hits and misses. Starting at age eight under the tutelage of his demanding father, he climbed the rankings, battling injury, coaching decisions, and snubs from both fans and players. His place in the glamorous and gritty world-class tennis scene gives him much dirt to dish, and all the big names are there-Andy Roddick, Roger Federer, Martina Navratilova, and Jennifer Capriati. Spadea takes shots with John McEnroe at practice, raps with the Williams sisters over email, and trades barbs with Andre Agassi, who once called Spadea a 'journeyman.' Part memoir and part expos, this equally comic and gripping trip through professional tennis reveals that the game may begin on the court, but it continues far outside the white lines.

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Groomed since the age of eight by his obsessive father, Spadea, by most accounts, has been a success. At the start of the 2005 season, 19th seed Spadea was the only 30+ year old player besides Agassi to be ranked in the top 20 on the world pro circuit. Spadea gives a riveting account of the ultra-competitive and often hilarious world of a pro tennis player. He battles injuries, coaching and agent changes. Agassi, Roddick, Federer, Nadal, Navratilova, Sharapova, Henman and Safin are analysedin more colourful and personal terms than the tennis media has ever provided...

Textauszug

JANUARY 4, 2005 Auckland, New Zealand A Qantas 747 airliner sets tire marks on the Auckland airport runway. Sweat is dripping from my forehead. I have both a backache and headache. For the past 14 hours after leaving Los Angeles International Airport - 14 hours in a machine 30,000 feet above a deep blue sea - I've been crammed into a coach seat. Now I've finally arrived in New Zealand, my eleventh trip to this part of the Pacific. This is crazy. I'm restless, anxious, barely self-contained as I realize how far I have just traveled to play in a tennis competition. When you're on the tour for 12 years, more than occasionally you have what can only be characterized as Trips from Hell. I had occupied the last seat on the plane, 72H, and it didn't even fully recline. I felt like a packed sardine, knees to my chest, no elbow room, limited food and drink offerings. When we finally landed, I was dehydrated and delirious. This is just two days after I'd celebrated New Year's in L.A. with friends and family, making this trip more sentimental and emotional than most. Spadea arriving in New Zealand, on New Year's I was dancing on the ceiling, now I'm squealing, appealing, praying and kneeling, but 2005 has begun, Vince gotta continue the run, gonna have more fun than when I turned 21. This is the unglamorous side of a tennis professional's life. The travel is one of the main reasons you see so few players over 30 years old on the tour these days. When players start thinking of retirement, especially champions like Sampras and Pat Rafter, who have earned more money and glory than they could expect in ten lifetimes, it's the excessive travel that curtails their careers more than anything else. The time spent in airports, on planes, in taxis - and the delays of missing luggage and drivers who get lost on the way to the tournament hotel or courts - wears on one's stamina and patience. Bjrn Borg retired for the first time at 25, Sampras retired for good at the 'old' age of 31, and Rafter, at 29. This life of being constantly on the road, away from family and friends for ten months of the year - that's right, ten months is the length of one pro tennis season - gets to you every now and then. It's getting to me right now, and I'm preparing to play just my first tournament of the season. I'd played my last tournament of 2004 at the end of October, and then I was on the American Davis Cup team that played the finals into December in Spain. So I'd had less than one month of an off-season - if you can call practicing twice a day for two of those weeks and working out every day in the gym downtime. Okay, so you're thinking, 'What a spoiled brat this guy is. He gets to fly to New Zealand and Australia to play tennis, and he's complaining about it.' But what some of you might not realize is that there's a major difference between taking a relaxing vacation and traveling to 'go to work.' This journey is costing me around $7,000 in airplane tickets, hotel rooms, and coaching fees for three weeks in which I will play two tournaments, one here in New Zealand, and then the big one in Australia, the first Grand Slam of 2005, the Australian Open. Usually, I also play the tournament in Adelaide beforeAuckland, but this year, because of my short off-season, I decided to skip that one. I've made this exact trip 11 times now - no questions asked - having missed it only in 1993 when I was just starting out on tour, and in 1997 because I had a back injury. In 2002, I made the trip Down Under, but my slump had dropped my ranking so low I had to try to qualify for the Australian Open.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 16.11.2010
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Sport ► Ballsport ► Tennis
• Themenwelt: Schulbuch / Wörterbuch ► Lexikon / Chroniken
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft
• ISBN-10: 1-55490-270-3 / 1554902703
• ISBN-13: 978-1-55490-270-5 / 9781554902705