- Information Theory
- Aruba & Netherlands Antilles
- Textile & Costume
- Somers, Suzanne
- Jackson, Steve
- Davies, Russell
- Science
- Starscape
- Yoshi's Story
- Pharmacology
- Douglas, Carole Nelson
- Anno, Mitsumasa
- Chupp, Sam
- Colorado
- Hemingway, Ernest
- Nonfiction
- Motherwell, Robert
- Haiti
- Teletubbies
- Care & Restoration
- Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista
- Forster, E.M.
- Dr. Seuss
- Blair, Michael
- Greyhawk
- Watches
- Home and Garden
- UK Electronics
- UK Books
- Health and Personal Care
- UK Sporting Goods
- Clothing, Shoes and Accessories
- Electronics, Gadgets and Computers
- CDs and Music Downloads
- UK Software and Video Games
- UK Toys and Games
- UK Home and Garden
- UK Video Games
- UK Baby Clothes and Accessories
- Books On
- German Electronics
Books : Sports : Racket Sports
-
Coaxed to swing a racket while still in the crib, forced to hit hundreds of balls a day while still in grade school, Agassi resented the constant pressure even as he drove himself to become a prodigy, an inner conflict that would define him. Now, in his beautiful, haunting autobiography, Agassi tells the story of a life framed by such conflicts. Agassi makes us feel his panic as an undersized seven-year-old in Las Vegas, practicing all day under the obsessive gaze of his violent father. We see him at thirteen, banished to a Florida tennis camp. Lonely, scared, a ninth-grade dropout, he rebels in ways that will soon make him a 1980s icon. By the time he turns pro at sixteen, his new look promises to change tennis forever, as does his lightning fast return. And yet, despite his raw talent, he struggles early on. We feel his confusion as he loses to the world's best, his greater confusion as he starts to win. After stumbling in three Grand Slam finals, Agassi shocks the world, and himself, by capturing the 1992 Wimbledon. Overnight he becomes a fan favorite and a media target. Agassi brings a near-photographic memory to every pivotal match, and every public relationship. Alongside vivid portraits of rivals, Agassi gives unstinting accounts of his brief time with Barbra Streisand and his doomed marriage to Brooke Shields. He reveals the depression that shatters his confidence, and t
-
Drawing on his work with some of the top teams in professional sports, noted sport psychology consultant Gary Mack shares with you the same techniques and exercises he uses to help elite athletes build mental "muscle." These 40 accessible lessons and inspirational anecdotes will help you gain the "head edge" over the competition.
-
-
What makes a champion? What does it take to be the best in the world at your sport?Rafael Nadal, one of the greatest players in the history of tennis, has the answers. In his memoir, written with award-winning journalist John Carlin, he reveals the secrets of his game and shares the inspiring personal story behind his success. It begins in Mallorca, a small island on the Mediterranean Sea, where the tight-knit Nadal family has lived for generations. Coached by his uncle Toni from the age of four, taught humility and respect by his parents, cherished by his exceptionally close extended family, Nadal has managed the uncommon feat of becoming an acclaimed global celebrity while remaining an unfailingly gracious, relentlessly hardworking role model for people in all walks of life.
Since he embarked on his tennis career ten years ago, the twenty-five-year-old Nadal has had a meteoric rise, becoming the youngest professional tennis player ever to win all four Grand Slam titles. He collected his first one, the French Open, in 2005 at age nineteen, and from there went on to win Wimbledon, the Australian Open, and, most difficult of all, the U.S. Open in 2010. His memoir takes us behind the scenes, sharing the highs and lows of his career, from winning the Wimbledon 2008 final, described by John McEnroe as "the greatest game of tennis" he had ever seen, to the family proble
-
-
He's been called the best in the world at the mental game of tennis. Brad Gilbert's strokes may not be pretty, but looks aren't everything. He has beaten the Tour's biggest names -- all by playing his "ugly" game.Now, in Winning Ugly Gilbert teaches recreational players how to win more often without necessarily even changing their strokes. The key to success, he says, is to become a better thinking player -- to recognize, analyze, and capitalize. That means outthinking opponents before, during, and after a match; forcing him or her to play your game. Gilbert's unconventional advice includes:
* How to identify the seven "Hidden Ad Points," and what to do when they come up
* Six reasons why you should never serve first
* How to beat a Lefty, a Retriever, a Serve-Volley player, and other troublesome opponents
* How to keep a lead, or stop a match from slipping away
* How to handle psyching and gamesmanship
Winning Ugly is an invaluable combat manual for the court, and its tips include "some real gems," according to Tennis magazine. Ultimately, Winning Ugly will help you beat players who have been beating you.
-
Being a successful coach is not just about Xs and Os and winning games. It’s about coaching young people to become successful athletes—and successful human beings. But unless you already have the teaching skills of an educator, the training expertise of a physiologist, the administrative leadership of a business executive, and the counseling wisdom of a psychologist, you will rely on this third edition of Successful Coaching to discover how to excel as a coach.
Successful Coaching offers an in-depth introduction to the coaching profession and is specifically written for the high school and serious club coach. Integrating the latest sport science research with practical knowledge acquired by highly experienced coaches, this book features new sections on sportsmanship, coaching diverse athletes, managing athletes’ behavior, preventing and addressing drug and alcohol abuse, and coaching using the games approach. Five sections serve as the foundation for the book:- Principles of Coaching emphasizes the value of a coaching philosophy and how to achieve the three major objectives of coaching: create a team of winners; help young people have fun; and motivate young people to develop physical, psychological, and social skills. Featured is a new chapter devoted to coaching diverse athletes, in which coaches learn about developmental differences in youth, cultural and gender differences, and differences in physical and mental abilities. Also new are specific guidelines on sexual harassment, sexual relations, and homosexuality in sport, making Successful Coaching the first book to offer written guidelines that address these issues.
- Principles of Behavior discusses how to communicate and motivate players, as well as manage problem behaviors among athletes, using a positive discipline approach.
- Principles of Teaching introduces the games approach to coaching and details how to incorporate this new approach into teaching technical and tactical skills. Coaches will learn how to develop an instructional plan for each practice and for the entire season.
- Principles of Physical Training includes five new chapters on training basics, training for energy fitness, training for muscular fitness, nutrition, and battling drugs. Coaches will learn to develop training programs for better sport performance and to ensure the health and safety of their athletes.
- Principles of Management covers the interpersonal and administrative basics required for building a solid coaching foundation that emphasizes team, relationship, and risk management. Helpful advice on working with fellow coaches, administrators, officials, medical personnel, parents, and the media is also included.
Successful Coaching, Third Edition, was reviewed by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) and the National Council for Accreditation of Coaching Education (NCACE) and complies with the NASPE National Standards for Sport Coaches and the NCACE Guidelines for Accreditation of Coaching Education.
-
Play with Freedom ... And Win More!The Best Tennis of Your Life is an inspirational and practical guide that will help players of all levels finally master the mental game. Author Jeff Greenwald draws from his unique background as a world-class player, sports psychology consultant, psychotherapist, and former coach to provides 50 specific tools you can immediately apply in any match situation. This comprehensive guide will show you how to:
- embrace nerves and play even better under pressure
- maintain confidence to win more consistently
- develop a pin-point focus
- access an ideal level of intensity
- play with a renewed sense of passion and freedom
Why wait any longer to play the best tennis of your life? Get the mental edge with this invaluable resource and watch your game soar.
-
Take Your Doubles Game to the Next Level!Whether you're trying to improve your doubles game or are just getting started playing tennis with a partner, The Art of Doubles is the book for you. Author Pat Blaskower is your personal coach, guiding and encouraging you and your partner to play winning tennis by showing you how to:
- choose a compatible partner
- determine your jobs on the court
- learn poaching skills
- communicate with each other and opposing teams
- maintain mental toughness
- use various formations and strategies
- pick your shots intelligently
- decide where to play: tournaments or leagues
- and much, much more!
-
11 Immediately actionable tips plus an implementation blueprint for how to apply them in practice, before a match, during the pre-match warm up and during a match.
The Mental Game accounts for over 85% of your game when playing a tennis match. Learn 11 practical and immediately actionable tips that will increase your mental toughness and win you more tennis matches.
This book incorporates the most effective mental tactics specifically aimed at improving your tennis game and winning more matches.
You will learn both the reasons behind the most challenging mental obstacles in tennis and step by step practice and match techniques to overcome those challenges.
The tips are straightforward and include immediately actionable steps you can use today in your practice to start seeing tennis match improvements tomorrow!
-
THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT THE MENTAL ASPECTS OF TENNIS:
Tennis is more difficult mentally than most other sports. It feels more important than it is; it has a diabolical scoring system; drawn-out competitive matches are highly stressful; and losing can be very painful. During competition emotions get out of hand, fears and nerves are hard to control, and confidence comes and goes. This book attacks these and other issues faced by players of all levels. Dr. Allen Fox’s solutions are logical and straightforward, and most importantly, they have been tested on court and they work.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Allen Fox, Ph.D. won the NCAA singles while earning his B.A. in physics and being named All-UCLA and All-University of California Athlete of the Year. He remained at UCLA to earn a Ph.D. in psychology, and as a graduate student was is 3-time member of the US Davis Cup team, reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals, and won titles including the U.S. National Hardcourts, Canadian Nationals, and Cincinnati.
Dr. Fox coached the Pepperdine University teams to top-five NCAA rankings for 10 consecutive years. He presently coaches Igor Kunitsyn (career high of #35) on the ATP tour, and has consulted on strategic/psychological issues with players of all levels, including pros Dinara Safina, Sam Querrey, and Dimitri Tursunov, elite juniors, and recreational players. He is on the staff of the Weil Tennis Academy in Ojai, Ca.
OTHER BOOKS, WRITINGS, AND SPEAKING BY DR. ALLEN FOX:
Allen Fox has authored two other books on tennis, “If I’m the Better Player, Why Can’t I Win?” and “Think to Win,” and a book on generalized achievement, "The Winner's Mind" (USRSA, 2005). He is an editor of Tennis Magazine and is a sought-after public speaker, having appeared at the national conferences of the USTA, USPTA, and PTR, and on the Tennis Channel with his popular One-Minute Clinics on psychology.
WHAT DO THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THE BOOK:
JOSE HIGUERAS, Dir. of coaching for the USTA:
"Allen describes problems that are real for players of all levels. His solutions are simple, honest, and most importatly, useful."
TRACY AUSTIN, 2-time U.S. Open winner & former world #1:
"I have long respected Allen Fox's ideas and sound judgment. His unique and insightful book on the mental game is simple, practical, and will certainly help you play better."
BRAD GILBERT, Renound coach of Agassi, Roddick, Murray:
"Allen is very smart. What I learned from him at Pepperdine helped me greatly as a player and coach, some of it so subtle it didn't completely jell until years after I left school."
JAY BERGER, USTA head of men's tennis & former world's #7:
"Allen is one of the most widely-respected people in the country on the mental game. I have worked alongside him at elite USTA junior training camps, and his ideas are straightforward and practical. I highly recommend his book to players of all levels."
-
John McEnroe stunned the tennis elite when he came out of nowhere to make the Wimbledon semifinals at the age of eighteen-and just a few years later, he was ranked number one in the world. You Cannot Be Serious is McEnroe at his most personal, a no-holds-barred examination of Johnny Mac, the kid from Queens, and his "wild ride" through the world of professional tennis at a boom time when players were treated like rock stars. Here he candidly explores the roots of his famous on-court explosions; his ambivalence toward the sport that made him famous; his adventures (and misadventures) on the road; his views of colleagues from Connors to Borg to Lendl; his opinions of contemporary tennis--and his current roles as husband, father, senior tour player, and often-controversial commentator).
-
Increase strength, power, agility, and quickness and take your game to a much higher level. Complete Conditioning for Tennis details how to make the most of your training time with exercises, drills, and programs designed to
-assess your fitness level,-improve footwork,
-increase speed and flexibility,
-enhance stamina,
-boost mental focus, and
-prevent common injuries.
Additionally, the 90-minute DVD takes you on court and into the gym to demonstrate the drills and exercises used by the pros.
Endorsed by the United States Tennis Association, Complete Conditioning for Tennis is simply the best guide to developing the highest level of athleticism for success in the sport.
-
Every tennis player at any age and skill level wants to play high-level tennis without pains and injuries. If you strive for improvement but cannot train as hard as you wish to, because you hurt often, this is a book for you. You will find practical advice on how to adjust your training to the requirements of your body, and how to achieve maximum tennis fitness that will improve your performance and your tennis game.
You will learn how to:- listen to your body
- understand what your body is telling you
- strengthen your weaknesses
- balance your strengths
- discover and correct your imbalances
- prevent future injuries
- improve your tennis performance through mindful fitness
-
A Davis Cup winner and Pepperdine coach has written the first book on the strategy and mental dimension of the game since the bestselling The Inner Game of Tennis.
-
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.
-
Roger Federer is a legend not only in the world of tennis but also in the wider sporting arena. With a record-breaking tally of 16 Grand Slam titles to his name, he shows no sign of slowing down and in 2010 added another Australian Open win to his collection, as well as taking the trophy in the end-of-season ATP World Wide Tour Finals in London. This authoritative and affectionate biography traces the rise of Federer, from his first tentative strokes with a tennis racket to how he dealt with being sent away to a training academy where he struggled to communicate in a French-speaking part of Switzerland; and how he handled the sudden death of his first real coach and mentor. It looks at his development as a sportsman and how he has matured into a family man with his marriage to Mirka Vavrinec and the birth of their twin girls. It also examines how Roger bounced back from arguably one of the most challenging periods of his career as, following a serious illness and a dip in form, his run of successive Wimbledon championship wins was ended and he was toppled from the number one spot by his long-time rival Rafael Nadal. In characteristic style, Federer silenced his critics by winning the French Open title for the first time, reclaiming his Wimbledon crown and ending 2009 at the number one position for the fifth time.
-
Can tennis really be this simple?
Just ask the dozens of world-class players who have made it to the top using Oscar Wegner’s groundbreaking approach. But if playing tennis isn’t so easy for you, if you never seem to play up to your potential, don’t blame yourself—blame the coach who taught you a lot of uselessly complex techniques. Play Better Tennis in 2 Hours is your guide to tennis as the pros play it—more intuitive, more fluid, and more fun. World-renowned tennis coach and ESPN commentator Oscar Wegner shows you how to focus your efforts on one thing—hitting the ball correctly. Your own natural athleticism will take care of everything else. Follow the simple drills in this power-packed handbook, and you’ll learn how to:
- Move to the ball efficiently and fluidly
- Stop worrying about foot position and stance
- Hit every stroke harder and more accurately
- Put a wicked topspin on your forehand
- Master both one- and two-handed backhands
- Combine control and power on your volleys
- Put more speed and spin into your serve and more punch in your return
"Known and respected all around the world, Oscar has given us another great contribution to tennis with this book."—Gustavo Kuerten, three-time French Open champion
"Oscar has broken the mold, demystifying the modern tennis stroke. There's genius in his analysis of pro techniques—the dynamics of what the racquet does to the ball, how power and spin are added. He understands how top pros really stroke the ball, and always have, all the way back to Tilden."—Andy Rosenberg, Director for NBC Sports Wimbledon and French Open
-
Before Federer versus Nadal, before Borg versus McEnroe, the greatest tennis match ever played pitted the dominant Don Budge against the seductively handsome Baron Gottfried von Cramm. This deciding 1937 Davis Cup match, played on the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon, was a battle of titans: the world's number one tennis player against the number two; America against Germany; democracy against fascism. For five superhuman sets, the duo’s brilliant shotmaking kept the Centre Court crowd–and the world–spellbound.
But the match’s significance extended well beyond the immaculate grass courts of Wimbledon. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the brink of World War II, one man played for the pride of his country while the other played for his life. Budge, the humble hard-working American who would soon become the first man to win all four Grand Slam titles in the same year, vied to keep the Davis Cup out of the hands of the Nazi regime. On the other side of the net, the immensely popular and elegant von Cramm fought Budge point for point knowing that a loss might precipitate his descent into the living hell being constructed behind barbed wire back home.
Born into an aristocratic family, von Cramm was admired for his devastating good looks as well as his unparalleled sportsmanship. But he harbored a dark secret, one that put him under increasing Gestapo surveillance. And his situation was made even more perilous by his refusal to join the Nazi Party or defend Hitler. Desperately relying on his athletic achievements and the global spotlight to keep him out of the Gestapo’s clutches, his strategy was to keep traveling and keep winning. A Davis Cup victory would make him the toast of Germany. A loss might be catastrophic.
Watching the mesmerizingly intense match from the stands was von Cramm’s mentor and all-time tennis superstar Bill Tilden–a consummate showman whose double life would run in ironic counterpoint to that of his German pupil.
Set at a time when sports and politics were inextricably linked, A Terrible Splendor gives readers a courtside seat on that fateful day, moving gracefully between the tennis match for the ages and the dramatic events leading Germany, Britain, and America into global war. A book like no other in its weaving of social significance and athletic spectacle, this soul-stirring account is ultimately a tribute to the strength of the human spirit.
From the Hardcover edition.
-
A Game to Love is the stunning publishing debut of award-winning sports photographer Mike Powell. Featuring 500 highly evocative images, the book celebrates the passion for tennis that exists around the world. Powell's extraordinary images capture the character and brilliance of the greatest players in the game today and are complemented by the words of many of the game's legendary greats of yesteryear, among them John McEnroe, Billie Jean King, Steffi Graf, Boris Becker, and Rod Laver. From superstar players, veterans, and juniors to the spectating cognoscenti and tennis haute couture; from screaming coaches, businesslike trainers, and long-suffering officials to the players' boxes, real fans, and "fan fashion"; from the intimate details of hands-on racquets and the wiping of brows to the textures of clay, grass, and hard court, A Game to Love is a luscious and original visual tribute to one of today's most-watched and most-loved sports.
Praise for A Game to Love:
"a love letter to tennis. . . What is usually obliterated by the pace of the game is restored to us by Powell's lush frames and a selection of quotes from players past and present."
-Publishers Weekly
"A Game to Love highlights Powell's ability to capture not only the breathtaking scenery, but the elegance, emotion and art of the human body in action."
-Tennis Magazine