It’s a wonderful feeling to invest in the emotions of a player and see him realise his life’s dream, and these tennis autobiographies will help you do just that. You can take several lessons from them, and apply them to your life. 

Rafa by Rafael Nadal

“I cut it when I should have driven it. My head had failed me. I knew that was not the shot to hit, but I had a moment’s hesitation, a moment of fear, and hit it anyway. I went for the conservative option, I lost my courage. And at that moment, I hated myself for that.”

Open by Andre Agassi

“No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, of course, but tennis players talk to themselves – and answer. In the heat of a match, tennis players look like lunatics in a public square, ranting and swearing and conducting Lincoln-Douglas debates with their alter egos. Why? Because tennis is so damned lonely.”

A Champion’s Mind by Pete Sampras

“But this is what I kept thinking: If he didn’t play that well, and I didn’t play that well, why did he win? And the answer dawned on me, slowly, over a matter of weeks. For the first time, I understood and could articulate the truth: I lost because I had packed it in. And it was part of a pattern.”

Serve To Win by Novak Djokovic

“After I won, I sat in the locker room in Melbourne. I wanted one thing: to taste chocolate. I hadn’t tasted it since the summer of 2010. Miljan brought me a candy bar. I broke off one square—one tiny square—and popped it into my mouth, let it melt on my tongue. That was all I would allow myself.”

You Cannot Be Serious By John McEnroe

“To be honest, sometimes, when I look back, I don’t know how any of this ever happened to me. Sometimes I think I was pushed into something I didn’t really want to do. My parents saw that I was good at it and better all the time; they nudged me, and I went along. I was a good boy, an obedient boy.”