The Outsider: A Memoir - Couverture rigide

Connors, Jimmy

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0061242993 ISBN 13 : 9780061242991

Editeur : Harper, 2013

Synopsis

Book by Connors Jimmy

A propos du livre

Quatrième de couverture :

Jimmy Connors is a working-man's hero, a people's champion who could tear the cover off a tennis ball, just as he tore the cover off the country-club gentility of his sport. A renegade from the wrong side of the tracks, Connors broke the rules with a radically aggressive style of play and bad-boy antics that turned his matches into prizefights. In 1974 alone, he won 95 out of 99 matches, all of them while wearing the same white shorts he washed in the sink of his hotel bathrooms. Though he lived the rock star life away from tennis, his enduring dedication to his craft earned him eight Grand Slam singles titles and kept him among the top ten best players in the world for sixteen straight years—five at number one.

In The Outsider, Connors tells the complete, uncensored story of his life and career, setting the record straight about his formidable mother, Gloria; his very public romance with America's sweetheart Chris Evert; his famous opponents, including Björn Borg, John McEnroe, Arthur Ashe, Ivan Lendl, and Rod Laver; his irrepressible co-conspirators Ilie Nastase and Vitas Gerulaitis; and his young nemesis Andre Agassi. Connors reveals how his issues with obsessive-compulsive disorder, dyslexia, gambling, and women at various times threatened to derail his career and his long-lasting marriage to Playboy Playmate Patti McGuire.

Presiding over an era that saw tennis attract a new breed of passionate fans—from cops to tycoons—Connors transformed the game forever with his two-handed backhand, his two-fisted lifestyle, and his epic rivalries.

The Outsider is a grand slam of a memoir written by a man once again at the top of his game—as feisty, unvarnished, and defiant as ever.

Revue de presse :

"An engrossing five-setter, with intense exchanges and no tiebreakers... Like the individualists Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Pete Rose and Chuck Berry, Connors was authentic. The book reflects that swagger." (New York Times)

"Eye-poppingly indiscreet: The Outsider makes most sports autobiographies feel like very tepid affairs in comparison." (Daily Mail)

"Exhilarating... served up at full pelt, as if Connors were charging at readers with his double-handed backhand, complete with sweaty grunts." (Mail on Sunday)

"As spiky and uncompromising as you would hope... candid and funny." (Marcus Berkmann Daily Mail, Sports Books of the Year)

"Kudos to Jimmy Connors for valiantly trying to argue in his autobiography, The Outsider, that the current spectacle of Roger Federer, Djokovic and Nadal - whose courtesy and dignity generally match the superlative quality of their play - has nothing on his own era of incontinent litigiousness, oncourt swearing, childish tantrums, umpire abuse, celebratory crotch-grabbing and mutual hatred between top players. Connors' book has the ring of honesty... a magnificent snapshot of his era." (Ed Smith New Statesman)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Harper
• Date d'édition: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0061242993
• ISBN 13: 9780061242991
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 416