A Champion's Mind: Lessons from a Life in Tennis

A Champion’s Mind

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.


From the Hardcover edition.


About author(s)
Peter Bodo is one of the most well-known journalists writing on professional tennis, as well as an avid outdoorsman who has written extensively about fly-fishing, deer hunting, and conservation and environmental issues. Born in Austria to Hungarian parents, he and his family immigrated to the United States in 1953, when Bodo was four. He grew up in New York and suburban New Jersey and began to write about tennis during the “tennis boom” of the 1970s. Since then, he’s covered every major tennis tournament, and has gone on assignment to locales such as Beijing, Monte Carlo, Ecuador, Moscow, Hawaii, and Australia. He was the winner of the WTA writer of the year award in 1979 and in 1981. His pioneering weblog at Tennis.com, Peter Bodo’s TennisWorld, is widely read by an international audience. While tennis has been the dominant theme in Bodo’s professional life, he’s covered events as diverse as the Ali vs. Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle” heavyweight title fight, a NCAA Final Four tournament, Major League Baseball, world-class soccer matches, the Indianapolis 500, NFL playoffs, and pro bass-fishing events. Bodo also was a principal “Outdoors” columnist for the New York Times, and a columnist for the Atlantic Salmon Journal. He’s written a number of books about his experiences as an angler and hunter, including a picaresque novel with a fly-fishing theme, The Trout Whisperers. Bodo divides his time between New York City, where he lives with his wife, Lisa, and son, Luke, and their farm in the Catskill town of Andes, New York.

Pete Sampras holds the distinction of being the youngest male player (at age 19) to win the US Open. During his career he won 64 top-level singles titles (including 14 Grand Slams, 11 ATP Masters Series titles, and 5 Tennis Masters Cup titles), as well as 2 doubles titles. He currently makes his home in Los Angeles with his wife, Bridgette, and their sons, Christian and Ryan.

A Champion’s Mind

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.


From the Hardcover edition.


About author(s)
Peter Bodo is one of the most well-known journalists writing on professional tennis, as well as an avid outdoorsman who has written extensively about fly-fishing, deer hunting, and conservation and environmental issues. Born in Austria to Hungarian parents, he and his family immigrated to the United States in 1953, when Bodo was four. He grew up in New York and suburban New Jersey and began to write about tennis during the “tennis boom” of the 1970s. Since then, he’s covered every major tennis tournament, and has gone on assignment to locales such as Beijing, Monte Carlo, Ecuador, Moscow, Hawaii, and Australia. He was the winner of the WTA writer of the year award in 1979 and in 1981. His pioneering weblog at Tennis.com, Peter Bodo’s TennisWorld, is widely read by an international audience. While tennis has been the dominant theme in Bodo’s professional life, he’s covered events as diverse as the Ali vs. Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle” heavyweight title fight, a NCAA Final Four tournament, Major League Baseball, world-class soccer matches, the Indianapolis 500, NFL playoffs, and pro bass-fishing events. Bodo also was a principal “Outdoors” columnist for the New York Times, and a columnist for the Atlantic Salmon Journal. He’s written a number of books about his experiences as an angler and hunter, including a picaresque novel with a fly-fishing theme, The Trout Whisperers. Bodo divides his time between New York City, where he lives with his wife, Lisa, and son, Luke, and their farm in the Catskill town of Andes, New York.

Pete Sampras holds the distinction of being the youngest male player (at age 19) to win the US Open. During his career he won 64 top-level singles titles (including 14 Grand Slams, 11 ATP Masters Series titles, and 5 Tennis Masters Cup titles), as well as 2 doubles titles. He currently makes his home in Los Angeles with his wife, Bridgette, and their sons, Christian and Ryan.

Alternative names:

• ISBN A Champion’s Mind
• ISBN A Champion’s Mind