A Champion's Mind: Lessons from a Life in Tennis
by Pete Sampras, Peter Bodo
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Book Summary Information
Author: Pete Sampras, Peter BodoEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-10
ISBN: 0307383296
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Crown
Book Reviews of A Champion's Mind: Lessons from a Life in Tennis
Book Review: If you are truly into tennis, you will love it.
Summary: 5 Stars
This book written with Peter Bodo is excellent. Bodo is a great tennis writer as he demonstrated with Inside tennis: A season on the pro tour and THE COURTS OF BABYLON: TALES OF GREED AND GLORY IN A HARSH NEW WORLD OF PROFESSI. Sampras is so reclusive. But, this book is like an insider's 6 hour interview with him.
Sampras tennis life is full of surprises. In his mid teens, Pete Fischer, a successful doctor and early coach of Sampras, convinces him to completely change his game. It is hard to believe that Sampras grew up as a baseliner with a two-hand backhand. Fischer convinces Sampras and his family to abandon his two-hand backhand and change from a baseliner to a serve-and-volleyer. Fischer envisions that by doing so Sampras will win more Grand Slams than anyone else. Sampras transition period is challenging and his ranking in the Juniors plumets. Fischer is unperturbed and tells Sampras and family to keep their eyes on long term objective and forget about Junior rankings that are meaningless. The rest is history. Another surprise is that Sampras did go through the Nick Bolitieri Tennis Academy (NBTA). But, Sampras serve-and-volley game is the exact antithesis of the NBTA mold of baseliners (Agassi, Courier, Arias, Krickstein). How did Sampras serve-and-volley game survived intact at the NBTA?
Even more surprising, Sampras hates grass at first. It will take him many tries before he finally wins Wimbledon at 22. But, he will soon become the best grass court player of the Open era with seven Wimbledon titles. He indicates how after his "boring" 1994 Wimbledon win over Goran Ivanisevic that amounted to just a contest of aces, Wimbledon decided to slow down the game by using softer balls and a different grass that would favor longer rallies. This will have a material impact, as nowadays Wimbledon champions never rush the net on their second serve and win the match more by riffling groundstrokes than volleys. Both Nadal and Federer do play this new style of grass court tennis.
Sampras was part of the U.S. great generation of young prodigies including Courier, Agassi, and Chang. They were all good buddies. But, their convergence to the top will inevitably turn them into rivals. It made it challenging for them to play together as a team in Davis Cup. They rarely did.
Sampras sole dedication to the game is full of sacrifice. He stated with humor that if he had met his favorite hollywood buddy Luke Wilson earlier in life, he would never have won so many Grand Slam events. This makes you wonder how many great talents out there did not fulfill their potential due to hedonism. A few names come to mind: Gerulaitis, Nastase, Vilas, Phillippousis, Safin, among others.
Sampras career takes off when at 19 he wins the 1990 US Open by beating in succession Lendl, McEnroe, and Agassi. I remember seeing some of those matches, including the final. And, you had no doubt here was a guy who had it all and will be a formidable force. Sampras shares how challenging the aftermath of this glorious moment was. All of a sudden, he is a cover page nationwide celebrity. All the major channels want to interview him. As a shy provincial teenager, he was not ready for that.
After this peak experience (winning the US Open at 19), it will take Sampras a long time to find his groove. He won't dominate the game readily and will suffer many set backs including two bad losses in the Davis Cup final vs France against two players he should have beaten (Leconte and Forget). He also will not win another Grand Slam tournament until he is 22.
Sampras will experience a lifelong awkward relationship with the Media. He will be blamed for being boring and unemotional. He feels misunderstood and advances the merit of discipline and self-control over the out-of-control tantrums of McEnroe and Connors who now dare give him advice on the matter. Sampras take is that no one thought Laver was boring. His tennis was enough entertainment. But, times have changed. Everything is more commercialized. The public want drama not just great tennis as in yesteryears.
Sampras talks about thalassmia, an iron deficiency, that caused him occasionally to weaken in tough matches under hot conditions. This was the case during his famous match with Corretja in the US Open quarters in 1996, when he vomited on the court but still manage to win in 5 long sets and collapsed right after the match.
He also states why he never mastered clay courts. With his one-handed backhand he was defenseless against high bouncing heavy topspin shots. He states that is why Federer has fits against Nadal on clay. Nadal being a lefthander makes it even worst for Federer.
In the conversation for the greatest in the Open era his choices are: Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Ivan Lendl, Roger Federer, and him. As a second tier group, he names: Connors, McEnroe, and Agassi.
About the Sampras-Agassi rivalry and their respective giftedness, Sampras states Agassi had the best eye-hand coordination and was an unrivaled ball striker. But, Sampras had a fast-twitch-muscle advantage. He felt he was much faster. And, if they got into a war of court coverage, he would beat Agassi.
The Appendix when he analyzes his record and the profile of his main rivals is very interesting. He states that Ivan Lendl is the most underestimated player of the Open era. Sampras earlier already mentioned him in his top 5 picks.
If you like this biography, I also strongly recommend McEnroe's You Cannot Be Serious," Nastase's Mr Nastase: The Autobiography and Becker's The Player: The Autobiography. They are all idiosyncratic, complex, multidimensional personalities.
Summary of A Champion's Mind: Lessons from a Life in Tennis
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.
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