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Break Point: The Secret Diary of a Pro Tennis Player | |||||||||
 
| 60% Recommended by our customers. Publisher: Sports Publishing, Inc. Catalog: Book Release date: 2008-03-22 Media: Paperback Format: Illustrated Number of pages: 192 Ean: 9781596703247 Book Isbn: 1596703245  Tip: compare prices with similar booksAuthors:
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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 expose, 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. |
| User Reviews: |
 Written on January 11, 2007 Summary: Interesting... if you are a tennis junkie. I came away not sure if I like Vince that much, and taking everything he wrote with a hefty grain of salt. But the inside take on the day to day of the tennis circuit was fascinating as well as the inside view of the other players.  Written on January 3, 2007 Summary: Inside pro tennis I really liked reading Vince Spadea's experiences at pro tour. What I knew before was 100% confirmed: it is extremely hard making it on tour. For those not knowing much about pro tennis I can highly recoment this book for anyone working at any field of tennis. Enjoy! Written on January 3, 2007 Summary: Spadea Establishes Himself as Odd Man of the ATP I found this book to be mildly entertaining, but ultimately somewhat disappointing. A year-long journal of life on the ATP tour should make for an interesting read--which it did--but I was disappointed by the lack of "dirt" on the players. I was hoping for detailed accounts of wild apres-tournament parties, tales of drug use, eating disorders, poor sportsmanship, etc. Unfortunately, it appears that Spadea is a total bore. He talks of "messing around" with tennis groupies, but then states that they didn't have sex. This sounds more like 14-year-old locker room talk than the life of a 30 year old man. Plus, he doesn't drink or do drugs. He talks disparaging about players suspected of steriod usage, but provides less empirical evidence than has already been publicly reported. Also, the inclusion of Spadea's raps was distracting. The fact that a 30-plus year-old Caucasian man listens to, writes or has any interest in rap music is disturbing and partially illustrates the downside of chosing not to attend college. Overall, I was left with the impression that Spadea is not too bright and really doesn't know (or is unwilling to share) much about the off-court lives of his tennis colleagues. Written on December 8, 2006 Summary: The newpaper, magazine and tv reviewers love the book... [....], they have all praised "Break Point." It has been called the best tennis book of 2006. I thought it was at times hilarious, but also telling, a pro tennis player who has all kinds of rationalizations for why he's not playing as well as he expects, but still plugs away and loves the game and the life. Most of what we hear from pro athletes is about the hardships, but Spadea makes the game and life seem for the most part a great challenge and fun. He's a little Holden Caulfield, Dennis Rodman, Huckleberry Finn and Jim Carrey put together. I can see where some readers felt they wanted more insight into the top players' games and psyches, and Spadea does tell good stories about Agassi, Blake, Roddick, John and Pat McEnroe, Navratilova, Sharapova, Clijsters and Brad Gilbert, but Spadea is obsessed with his own path. And it's an odd, but passionate one. At 32, I believe he's the oldest American in the top-75 in the world-rankings and as Wertheim says, "Spadea gives a lot of insight into the world of a 20-50th ranked player." If you're interested in the journey of a pro tennis player, distinguished enough to have played and beaten Agassi, Blake, Roddick, Federer and Nadal, but below the radar screen of most sports fans, this is an absorbing and enjoyable read.  Written on November 14, 2006 Summary: Spadea serves up a lame game (pun intended) Aw, Vince, promises promises. He promised to give us an insider's look at the glamorous world of jet setting professional tennis stars as well as an in depth look at what it takes to be a top player. He delivered a double fault. Break Point is more of a running head commentary of a man who comes off as borderline manic-depressive. He wins a few matches, loses more, he's lowerer than a snail, then he's full of hope with feathers that he can turn it all round with preserverence. We as readers get it, we as tennis fan sympathize but in Vince's books are sympathy wears then fast as we encounter the same grousing page after page with little if any real insight. This kind of narration dominates the book though, on a few occasions, Vince takes a look at his fellow players. He gets a little "catty" in regard to James Blake and he disses a few others but doesn't give much in the way of insider information to give us a true tell all (Micheal Mewhaw he's not). Heck, Spadea even admits quite a few times that he is not buddy buddy with any other players and rarely socializes with the other guys. When he does speak about attending a party here or there he makes a point of letting us know he doesn't stay long, and though he protests that he is not judgemental, he comes down rather hard on other players who are not as chaste in the area of romance as he is. Spadea does talk alot about women in his book. He even gives us a hilarious, though not meant to be, analysis of how to sucessfully woe women. He is, however, a tease. Spadea talks of meeting up with "hot" women and even taking them back to his hotel, but he quickly begs off after a little making out and sends the women back where they come from. He is, in essence, a tease to these women who offer their sexual favors so willingly (at least he protrays them this way. The book would be a total loss, not worth a single star, except that it does offer the reader a view of a tennis family and Spadea is his most honest and most empathetic in describing his relationship with his father. It is too bad Vince spends more time on "rapping" and "whining" instead of giving us the human up close details we crave about the professional tennis players we admire from a distance. |
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| Our price | $11.53 | $16.47 | $10.92 | - | $12.21 | $16.47 |
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| Catalog | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book |
| Release date | 2008-03-22 | 2008-06-10 | 2008-05-13 | 2005-07-26 | 2005-01-27 | 2007-06-25 |
| Media | Paperback | Hardcover | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Hardcover |
| Format | Illustrated | - | - | - | - | - |
| Number of pages | 192 | 320 | 288 | 366 | 288 | 250 |
| Ean | 9781596703247 | 9780307383297 | 9780061560606 | 9780553817164 | 9781574889253 | 9780942257397 |
| Book Isbn | 1596703245 | 0307383296 | 006156060X | 0553817167 | 1574889257 | 0942257391 |
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