NEW Pete Sampras Biography Hits Store Shelves Today

Scheduled to hit bookstores today is the long-awaited biography by Pete Sampras, A Champions Mind.

In A Champion’s Mind,  Sampras, arguably the greatest tennis player ever, a man whose hard-nosed work ethic led to an unprecedented number one world ranking for 286 consecutive weeks, and whose prodigious talent made possible a record-setting fourteen Grand Slam titles offers an intimate look at the life of an elite athlete.

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, Sampras 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.

For the first time Sampras 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.

A compelling read and nobody better to tell it than Pete Sampras himself.

Available online at Amazon.com.