Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Break Point! An Insider's Look at the Pro Tennis Circuit by Vince Spadea Tennis Enigmas: Vince Spadea. In 1999, he broke into the Top 20 players in the world for the first time, but in 2000, he had a string of injuries that dropped him drastically to a world ranking of 237 from 19. Vince set a new ATP benchmark with a 21-match losing streak in 2000, finally beating Greg Rusedski 9-7 in the fifth at Wimbledon. Instead of letting this get him down, he decided to re-dedicate himself to Tennis, hiring a new team to get him back in shape, eating right and staying out of trouble. And it worked. In 2003, Spadea was on fire. He went through qualifying at the Pacific Life Open and reached the semi-finals for the first time in his career, losing to World No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt . He then went on to the Monte Carlo Masters a month later and reached his 2nd semi-finals in a Masters series event. In 2004, he finally won his first title in Scottsdale, breaking another record as the most tournaments played for a first title. On route to his maiden win, he beat Tommy Johansson , Wayne Arthurs , James Blake , Andy Roddick and Nicolas Kiefer . That’s a tough lower-tier entry list! Then a few weeks later in Miami, he was on the loose again reaching the semi-finals losing to Roddick. But again, en route taking out Blake, Safin, Stepanek, Srichaphan and Calleri . He started 2005 on a tear, beating David Sanchez (remember him?) 6-0, 6-0 in 48 minutes, but his year never really got going and although there were no dramatic ranking slides, he still held a steady top 100 place. The years since have mainly been on the Challenger circuit and more recently Pro-Ams but it’s been a heck of a ride. Life Off Court – Break Point. Vince's Secret Diary. In 2005, Vince published one of the most controversial but insightful books about the life of a tennis pro at the somewhat lower echelons of the tour. Vince’s candidness is actually refreshing when compared to the fairly safe player autobiographies out there., such as James Blake’s. He has plenty to say about other players but he doesn’t trash talk anyone per se but he voices his opinion on his controversial Davis Cup experience and his frosty relationships with James Blake, Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi . All agreed though that Vince has talent and his list of top players he has beaten (in their prime) is impressive. Lendl and McEnroe said they would have his backhand any day – that’s high praise. Vince also explains his methods for picking up girls, cleverly named ‘The Da Vince Code’. Much like Agassi’s book, his memories of particular matches and points has incredible detail and you feel like you were on court with him. He talks about the toll of all the traveling and the sometimes lonely existence of a pro tennis player, the fact you fly all the way to Australia in coach only to lose a first round is especially tough. Above all, you get to learn about a sensitive to him and his feelings towards being called a journeyman, which I for one think is unfair. He’s right when he says if you don’t crack the top 100 you’re a journeyman. Top 20? How could this statement apply? Anyway, tennis autobiographies are best when they do ruffle a few feathers, but respectfully and without trying to be nasty to anyone and Vince’s does that. Check out my Top 10 tennis books while you at it for the skinny on some of the others out there, but this one and Agassi’s are the best. Vince Spadea Aint Afraid of Ya: The Da Vince Code. “Andy’s got a great attitude and is already a bit of an icon within his generation, but he may never do better than Chang. He’s more charismatic, but results-wise, he’s no better than Michael was at this point. Really, if he were playing during Sampras’ and Agassi’s primes, Andy might be like Michael, playing a little bit in their shadows.” Vince Spadea on Andy Roddick. “I think I’ve had small indications in the past that I can go into the second week of the major tournaments. I don’t want to disillusion myself but I think it’s something I can do again.” Vince Spadea gearing up for a Roland Garros run. “I lost the edge, slid downhill. I lost the passion to win. I was playing in small towns in Missouri where they didn’t even have ball boys. My comeback is different from the likes of (Andre) Agassi, (Jennifer) Capriati, Thomas Muster. Those guys were inspirational but they had a different entourage, they had contacts. My comeback came from ground-level.” on getting back some of his rap in the post-match conferences. “I was really injured for a year, I lost my whole ranking because I didn’t play. In some ways I was out there making myself a worse tennis player for some reason. I got a team, I designed a program, and I went about it. I was forcefully, adamantly, mentally, and physically going for a comeback. I asked the people that I felt wanted to be passionate about tennis, knowledgeable, and that would encourage and motivate me to do so. I worked with Dr. Pete Fisher, I called him. I started working with a tennis psychologist off and on. I started with a great fitness program. So all the way through, this was more or less a project, and it wasn’t sort of a fluke that I’m starting to play back to my form of four years ago.” on bursting back on to the scene in Indian Wells. I'll wear white my own way. “The Argentineans practice on the court for two hours a day, then they must practice in front of a mirror for two more hour saying ‘I’m not guilty.’” on the Argentines on the men’s tour and drug testing. I’ve been around so long that I might be in record books for being the longest, weirdest, most pathetic great player ever. Look t how precocious I am at 33.” on his career. “Tim likes to dish it out the barbs, but he doesn’t like to receive them” on Tim Henman. “Radek is a nice guy off court, always shaking hands and saying hello, being courteous. Yet on court he changes 180 degrees and becomes amazingly annoying to play against” Radek Stepanek. “It seemed to me that Rios tanked his matches more blatantly than others. While I got along with him, I could see he was a difficult character. He was apathetic about everything and always had a snarl on his face. Rios was callous and mad but amusing.” on Marcelo Rios. “Even though I’m shorter, he’s going to run for the border” on playing Pete Sampras. Others on Vince: “If you read it, you must have been one of the 10 books he sold.” James Blake on Vince Spadea’s tell-all book. “He [Vince Spadea] was about as down and out as you could see from a Top 20 player. Then to claw his way back through the minor leagues and do it the hard way where he wasn’t young, wasn’t getting wildcards, wasn’t getting any help. I guess he decided he was just going to do it.” Andy Roddick, thinking hard about his take on the rebirth of Vince Spadea. “I wore that to a sixth-grade dance.” Robby Ginepri on Vince Spadea’s outfit in Miami. The Numbers: Career Titles/Finals: 1/4 Win/Loss Record: 311/359 Career High Ranking: 18 (2005) Finest moment: Winning his lone title in Scottsdale beating Nicolas Kiefer Famous For: Being one of the most versatile and colorful characters on the Tennis scene. VINCE SPADEA HIGHLIGHT. USTA Magazine – May 30, 2004 – Michael McNulty – After a mid-career spiral into oblivion, Vince Spadea has proven himself a tennis force to be reckoned with. The herd of tourists shuffled through the hallowed hallways of NBC studios in New York City. Past the old ghosts of Saturday Night Live. Down to where Matt and Katie wake up the nation. Up to Conan O’Brien’s late-night lair. Vince Spadea was one of them. A tourist. Of course, the scene was all wrong. World-class tennis players don’t take studio tours with strangers in Manhattan during Labor Day Weekend. World-class tennis players compete at the US Open before adoring fans in Queens during Labor Day Weekend. When the 70-minute tour ended and the other tourists scattered, Spadea left Rockefeller Center on foot. He had no place to go. Nowhere to be. “Here I was wandering the streets of New York City, kind of floating and not truly feeling anything. It was quiet and lonely,” Spadea says about the long holiday weekend in 2001. “No agencies were interested in me. I had no clothing deals. I was calling 1-800 numbers of sporting goods companies saying, “Can you get me some free shirts?” Spadea reached SoHo wherein his cell phone range. “How’d you do at the Open?” the voice asked. It was an acquaintance. Vince paused. This was it. Rock bottom. “Actually, I didn’t play at the Open,” he said. “I didn’t qualify.” Vince Spadea’s career was at a crossroads. His psyche was fragile. His confidence was shot. His game was a mess. And to think, everything had appeared so bright for the Boca Raton, Fla., resident two years earlier, in 1999. It had been his best year as a pro: the quarterfinals at the Australian Open and at Monte Carlo the final at Indianapolis, the round of 16 at the US Open. A N. 19 ranking. Spadea’s name was being mentioned with America’s top tennis threats. So when Spadea lost to Lleyton Hewitt in Lyon, France, in October of that year, no one would have predicted that all of Spadea’s promise and expectations would begin to slowly unravel. But they did. That defeat marked the beginning of an ATP record-setting 21-consecutive-match losing streak that would send Spadea into a delirium-inducing tailspin. Spadea is sick of hearing about the streak, and its understandable. Twenty-one consecutive losses. During the headline-grabbing eight-month-long odyssey, Spadea traveled from France to Germany to Russia to Australia to the United States to Monaco to Spain to Italy to Germany (again) and the France (again), without winning even once. “It was very tough to watch, the worst,” says Vincent Spadea, Sr., who has traveled extensively with his son and often acted as coach. “You kept thinking every week that he’s break out of it and play the way he’s capable of playing.” For many reasons-nagging injury, poor play, tough draws, bad luck, negative press-Spadea couldn’t stop the bleeding. “The bottom line is I lost my passion,” Spadea says. “It’s amazing how you can go from the top to zero.” Zero is where Spadea was in Manhattan in 2001. The American tennis world was hosting its sparkling showcase event in Queens, and he was in the wrong borough. Before the 2001 US Open, he played numerous Challenger tournaments and failed to reach the final in any of them. He was desperately trying to raise a ranking that, at one point, plummeted to a comatose N. 229. A career in tennis-his dream-was circling the drain. He began to wonder about other professions. But while this internal struggle was being waged, the competitor inside him refused to die. The competitor inside him chose to fight. “I wanted vindication that I belonged,” Spadea says, but he didn’t know how to orchestrate a comeback of such magnitude. The summer of 2001 was drawing to a close, and it had been almost two years since he had been a formidable opponent on the ATP Tour. “I was 27 years old and starting over,” he says. “I needed to surround myself with people who were passionate about tennis.” He set about that task immediately. One of the individuals he tapped was Pete Sampras’ old coach, Pete Fischer, who helped restructure Spadea’s serve. Another was Andre Agassi, who’d made his own comeback in 1998. IN the autumn of 2001, Agassi and his wife Steffi Graf, hosted Spadea at their Las Vegas home for a week so he could train. The other major piece in the Spadea rebirth project was sport performance psychologist John Murray, who works with professional tennis and football players. Considering tennis is the most solo of sports (at least boxers get advice between rounds, and golfers have the assistance of a caddy), controlling emotion when things fail on the court is a daunting proposition. While some other athletes may have shunned psychology, Spadea embraced a mental overhaul. Despite the renewed enthusiasm, Spadea went into the fall of 2001 knowing he would have to scratch and claw for wins on the USTA Pro Circuit if he wanted to see the ATP Tour again. He was now the sideshow veteran fighting for survival in a cutthroat landscape of rising young stars such as Andy Roddick, James Blake and Mardy Fish. He also faced a less luxurious environment than what he had grown accustomed to since turning pro in 1993. “I think I took it for granted,” Spadea says about the ATP lifestyle. “Now I was on a budget. I was driving a rent-a-car from city to city.” This after being picked up for matches by a shiny new Mercedes at upscale hotels. “I was going to Denny’s to make sure I had eggs before I played. I was sharing lockers, and playing in matches where the ballkids were older than the linespeople. It was a humbling experience, but it made me motivated.” A fortuitous break didn’t hurt either. If Spadea ever got a sign that he wasn’t wasting his time, it was when he faced a match point against an obscure, less-talented Slovakian named Ladislav Svarc in the opening round of a Challenger event in Houston in October 2001. “I ended up saving the match point, winning the match, then winning the whole tournament,” Spadea says. “That was one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever had on a tennis court. It genuinely helped. I started enjoying playing, and I started to feel good out there again.” Propelled by the win, Spadea made the finals of his next two Challengers in Burbank, Calif., and Tyler, Texas. After reaching the final at the Bermuda Challenger in April 2002, Spadea quietly qualified for the main draw in Rome. Yet he quickly lost to Mark Philippoussis in the first round. He played a few more tour events, including the Roland Garros, but found only moderate success for the rest of the year. While waiting for a comeback chance, Spadea nourished his mind with inspirational biographies such as Rocky Marciano by Everett M. Skehan. “Marciano became heavyweight champion at 29,” Spadea says. “I think sometimes in tennis we put too much emphasis on guys getting old.” Spadea would turn 29 in 2003. And despite his positive philosophy on age, he knew there were only so many years of competition left in his body. He needed a breakthrough on the main tour. That watershed locale was Memphis in February 2003, where Spadea reached the semifinals. Proving it wasn’t a fluke, 2003 also saw him reach the quarterfinals in San Jose and Los Angeles, the semi-finals in Moscow, and-far more importantly-the semis of two Masters Series events, Indian Wells and Monte Carlo. Spadea’s ranking reached No. 29, while his Champions Race position was as high as No. 10 during the spring and No. 18 at Wimbledon. But Spadea’s biggest destination of all was still on the horizon. After beginning his 2004 season by advancing to quarterfinals in Adelaide and Auckland, Spadea made his way to Scottsdale, Ariz., for the Franklin Templeton Tennis Classic, a tournament at which he’d never, in four tries, even won a match. This time was different. He cruised through the first and second rounds, then beat Blake in three sets in the quarterfinals and came back from a set down to defeat top-seeded Roddick in the semis. His final stop: a three-set, 2-hour, 44-minute title match against Nicolas Kiefer. Showing the fortitude of a man determined not to let a dream slip by, Spadea saved seven of nine break points, including four in the final set, and won the match 7-5, 6-7, 6-3. After playing 223 ATP Tour events, Spadea finally won a singles title. “To win a title,” Spadea says, “to beat Andy and James along the way, then having to dig as deep as I’ve ever had to dig and finish it off, is wonderful-I’d have to look in a thesaurus for a better word to say.” Roddick remembers playing Spadea in 200 and 2001. “His confidence as really low then,” Roddick says. “He was missing a lot and getting discouraged. It’s definitely not that type of match now. Vince makes you work for it every time out there. He’s a grinder, he has more firepower and he returns well, and that separates him from a lot of other players.” Against the steepest of odds, Vince Spadea has made it all the way back from the bottom. His revival is one of the grittiest displays of determination tennis has seen in years. “It as a great effort to turn around his career, and his career had been pretty much in the toilet,” says Brad Gilbert, who oversaw Agassi’s resurgence. “Vince went back to the minor leagues and grinded and regained his confidence. Now he’s Top 30 in the world. It’s been a great performance.” Still, Spadea insists there’s work left to do. “I still feel there’s a lot in me. I think I can go higher,” he says. “I’d love to win a Grand Slam, but overall I want to be the best player I can be. This is what I love to do.” Break Point!: An Insider's Look at the Pro Tennis Circuit by Vince Spadea. Break Point: The Secret Diary of a Pro Tennis Player by Vince Spadea with Dan Markowitz ECW Press ISBN 1-55022-729-7 Published July 2006 – Hardcover – 277 pages – $24.95. Here we are in the peaceful lull after the US Open, when everything seems to wind down for the American tennis fan, and we dread the sounds of indoor tennis domes being inflated around the northern part of the country. It’s a good time to catch up on your reading, and I recently finished reading Vince Spadea’s book, Break Point . You might recall that I was given a copy of this book while I was blogging at Legg Mason, so I’ve been feeling semi-obligated to pony up my impressions. Quite a bit has been made of Spadea’s so-called ‘tell-all,’ due in part to James Blake , who wasn’t at all amused about Spadea’s remarks about him. It’s true that Spadea takes a few swings at Blake, with a story about gamesmanship and parceling out random lines throughout like, “I got so much press attention I felt like James Blake.” The truth is that Spadea smack talks a lot of players in this book, but he heaps out some praise too. The sad fact is that so much of the time reading this book is spent drawing conclusions based on half-stories that it’s hard to keep up. While Break Point is neither thought-provoking nor ground-breaking, it does provide a very small glimpse from inside the tight-lipped tennis world. It touches on issues like the role that parents have on the tour, the relationships with agents, coaches, sponsorships, endorsements, and the media; the constant travel, the importance of a healthy diet, some of the training and discipline that goes into becoming a great player, as well as some of the mental aspects of the game. Spadea writes not only about his wins, but his inferiorities about losses. Unfortunately, more has been made about this book for the locker room talk than anything else. If you’re looking for the Jose Conseco book on tennis, rest assured that this isn’t it. This notion begs the obvious question for readers: If you’re looking for a good tell-all about the tour, do you think that Spadea is the guy to tell it? Granted he’s been around for a long time, but is he the “inside man”? Let’s face facts: Vince Spadea has a few idiosyncrasies. He’s proficient at creating crappy rap lyrics and wearing his own gear adorned with a sparkly ‘S.’ He doesn’t have the whole portfolio or the persona to be the Dennis Rodman of tennis, and being a self-proclaimed loner puts him out of the running. As any lawyer will tell you, he’s just not a witness with veracity. Here’s what Vince had to say about why he wrote it: I’m starting to hear a few comments from the other players concerning what I’m writing. I’m not worried about what they think. I’m just a squirrel trying to get a nut and I’ve got a book deal. Hey, more power to my publisher for buying a book that is going to provide a true representation of who I am and what the pro tennis tour is all about. I believe in being moral and telling the truth, so the idea that I shouldn’t write honestly about what I hear, see, and think about the other players and the game is nonsense. We all have an opinion, and this is the land of the free and the home of the brave. But unless I start winning again, no one’s going to care what I write about anyway. Somewhere between truth and opinion is perception. This book is unfortunately riddled with so many inaccuracies and so many inconsistencies that you have to wonder if the venerable ECW Press employs any editors.* Hats off to Dan Markowitz who presumably took on the formidable task of deciphering Spadea’s stream of consciousness, no doubt written on the back of draw sheets and cocktail napkins worldwide. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be much of an improvement. ADHEREL. It’s safe to say that if you’re reading this, you love the game of tennis. There were no grand revelations or insights in this book that you couldn’t glean out of a decent tennis periodical, or even a great news site like Tennis-X. Instead what you’ll find is a poorly written book that probably once had great promise. Much like its protagonist. * I’d also like to thank the publisher for the great index, without which I never could have written this review. (Oh wait, there is no index . Nevermind.) Melvil Decimal System: 796.3420. Wording: Arts and Recreation > Amusements and Recreation > Athletic and outdoor sports and games > Ball Sports > Racquet Sports > Tennis > Tennis. Dewmoji: > > > ? > > ? > ? Works under MDS 796.3420. by André Agassi by W. Timothy Gallwey by John McEnroe by Arthur Ashe by John McPhee by Sue Stauffacher by Rafael Nadal by Martina Navratilova by Brad Gilbert by Pete Sampras by L. Jon Wertheim by Johnette Howard by Bill Gutman by Jimmy Connors by James Blake by Sandra Faulkner by Serena Williams by Adrianne Blue by Billie Jean King by Lesa Cline-Ransome by Tim Adams by Howard Bryant by Raymond Arsenault by Frank Deford by Robin Dexter. Wording. "Far Friends" MDS classes with significant recommendations overlap, excluding ones under the same top-level class. Related tags. What is MDS? Melvil stands for "Melvil Decimal System," named after Melvil Dewey, the famous librarian. Melvil Dewey invented his Dewey Decimal System in 1876, and early versions of his system are in the public domain. More recent editions of his system are in copyright, and the name "Dewey," "Dewey Decimal," "Dewey Decimal Classification" and "DDC" are registered trademarked by OCLC, who publish periodic revisions. LibraryThing's MDS system is based on the classification work of libraries around the world, whose assignments are not copyrightable. MDS "scheduldes" (the words that describe the numbers) are user-added, and based on public domain editions of the system. The Melvil Decimal System is NOT the Dewey Decimal System of today. Wordings, which are entered by members, can only come from public domain sources. The base system is the Free Decimal System, a public domain classification created by John Mark Ockerbloom. Where useful or necessary, wording comes from the 1922 edition of the Dewey Decimal System. Language and concepts may be changed to fit modern tastes, or to better describe books cataloged. Wordings may not come from in-copyright sources. Melvil Decimal System: 796.34209. Wording: Arts and Recreation > Amusements and Recreation > Athletic and outdoor sports and games > Ball Sports > Racquet Sports > Tennis > Tennis > Biography And History. Dewmoji: > > > ? > > ? > ? > Works under MDS 796.34209. by André Agassi by John McEnroe by Arthur Ashe by John McPhee by Sue Stauffacher by Rafael Nadal by Martina Navratilova by Pete Sampras by L. Jon Wertheim by Johnette Howard by Bill Gutman by Jimmy Connors by James Blake by Sandra Faulkner by Serena Williams by Billie Jean King by Adrianne Blue by Lesa Cline-Ransome by Tim Adams by Howard Bryant by Raymond Arsenault by Frank Deford by Robin Dexter by Boris Becker by Monica Seles. Wording. "Far Friends" MDS classes with significant recommendations overlap, excluding ones under the same top-level class. Related tags. What is MDS? Melvil stands for "Melvil Decimal System," named after Melvil Dewey, the famous librarian. Melvil Dewey invented his Dewey Decimal System in 1876, and early versions of his system are in the public domain. More recent editions of his system are in copyright, and the name "Dewey," "Dewey Decimal," "Dewey Decimal Classification" and "DDC" are registered trademarked by OCLC, who publish periodic revisions. LibraryThing's MDS system is based on the classification work of libraries around the world, whose assignments are not copyrightable. MDS "scheduldes" (the words that describe the numbers) are user-added, and based on public domain editions of the system. The Melvil Decimal System is NOT the Dewey Decimal System of today. Wordings, which are entered by members, can only come from public domain sources. The base system is the Free Decimal System, a public domain classification created by John Mark Ockerbloom. Where useful or necessary, wording comes from the 1922 edition of the Dewey Decimal System. Language and concepts may be changed to fit modern tastes, or to better describe books cataloged. Wordings may not come from in-copyright sources.