Wow, I think this the longest I haven't posted anything on the blog... but keeping busy on those other social sites and still working on losing weight (less than a pound to go to reach the 10 lbs lost!) and watching tennis....
So it only seems appropriate that I finally get around to this book (read in June!)... Getting A Grip by Monica Seles... which is a lot about tennis and weight loss!
I think even most non-tennis fans probably know at least something about Monica Seles, even if it is not for her amazing success on the courts. If not, Seles was the victim in what I think is one of the most horrific events in sports history when, at age 20 and at the height of her career, she was stabbed in the back in Germany by a crazed fan who wanted Seles' main rival, Steffi Graf, to return to the #1 ranking. Thanks to a whole lot of luck, the stabbing did not cause serious injury (narrowly missing major muscles) it took over 2 years for Seles to return to tennis and while she had some great results she only managed to add 1 more Grand Slam title to the 8 she racked up between May 1990 to January 1993.
The stabbing ended up causing more psychological harm and coupled with the death of her beloved father, Seles began to find comfort in food with her weight gain that was quite evident upon her return to tennis and hampering the comeback (though it's all relative, 95% of tennis players would have loved to have had her post-comeback results).
Given this story, it is hard not to be inspired by Seles' story. I'll admit to being a huge Seles fan and in fact one of my first forays onto the Internet was creating a stats page tracking her career (win-loss stats, head-to-head results, etc.). And as you can see by the book cover, Seles did win her battle with food.
Just in her mid-30s now, this is Seles' second memoir! I read the first one I believe was published around the comeback, chronicling her early years through the stabbing and her comeback. This one covers much of the same territory though extends through her recent (and quite brief) appearance on Dancing With The Stars (I was not surprised by her short stay, Seles was never a graceful athlete - so my expectations were low for her ballroom dancing). And obviously, this one is a lot about her eating problems and weight gain which she was likely quite deep in denial about at the time of that first book.
All this said, I really can't recommend this book to a non-tennis fan... and even more so, someone who doesn't hold at least some affection for Seles. Likewise, there is not a whole lot to cull from it about weight loss as this isn't an advice book either... much of the time you just have to marvel about how Seles' double life, competing vs. world-class athletes but fueling her own body so badly.
The book really doesn't offer any juicy inside stuff about the tennis tour and the descriptions of tennis matches or tournaments tend to be quite mechanical (this happened, then this, then I played Player X and I won)... and some stuff you would like to hear about doesn't get much attention. For example, she talks about playing for the U.S. Fed Cup team and in "oh, by the way" fashion notes how she became a U.S. citizen a few years prior to that... it would have been interesting to hear why it was important to her to get citizenship and some of the stuff involved in doing that.
This is pretty typical of the tennis (auto)biography as I have yet to read a really good/great one. Though that isn't stopping me for trying again. I am contemplating Serena Williams' just released memoir for our upcoming vacation... and the biggie, Andre Agassi's book is due in November.
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