Product Description

For those of you tuned into this past season’s Dancing with the Stars, it’s hard to believe that spectacularly fit former tennis champion Monica Seles struggled with binge-eating and depression.

Getting a Grip chronicles Monica’s success on the tennis circuit where, at age sixteen, she became the youngest winner in French Open history. For three years she dominated the tour, racking up eight Grand Slam titles, and charming the media at post-match conferences with her trademark giggle. She seemed unstoppable until a deranged Steffi Graf fan plunged a knife into her back during a match in Hamburg and turned her life upside down. Her injuries healed but the emotional trauma was deep. With no support from the WTA and her number-one ranking falling, Monica sunk into a depression. Hiding from the media and disappearing from the tennis world, she turned to food for comfort. She spent more than two years in seclusion, trying to fight off the fog of despair.

Back in the public eye but far from recovered, she continued the battle against herself—grueling six-hour workouts were sabotaged by secretive late-night binges—and she was assaulted with criticism about her weight from her trainers, nutritionists, and, most brutally, the press. Playing with an extra thirty pounds and devastated after losing her father/coach to cancer, she was never able to regain her former dominance on tour.

After an excruciating injury forced her to take time off from tennis in 2003, Seles embarked on her own journey. She abandoned the arduous workouts and the punitive diets. As she uncovered the painful emotional reasons that had been the trigger for her binge-eating, she finally found the peace and balance she had been searching for.

Monica Seles’s determination, amazing talent, and touching vulnerability make her story both incredibly human and inspiring. By sharing her own narrative, she hopes to motivate other people to take control of their lives and their own happiness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50288 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781583333303
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Monica Seles is a former number-one world professional tennis player who became the youngest-ever champion at the French Open in 1990, and went on to win nine Grand Slam singles titles. Tennis magazine lists Seles as the thirteenth greatest tennis player of all time, men or women. In October 2007, she was appointed a goodwill ambassador/spokesperson for the UN’s Global Sports for Peace and Development Program Initiative. Despite her early elimination, Monica was a sentimental favorite on season six of Dancing with the Stars.

Customer Reviews

Encouraging and Heartfelt Memoir
I had never heard of Monica Seles before hearing her do an interview on NPR last week, but her story sounded really interesting and so I decided to buy this book. I don't know a lick about tennis - I had to look up "Grand Slam" on Wikipedia because Seles refers to it so much and I had NO CLUE what it was. Despite my ignorance of tennis, I still felt incredibly drawn in to Seles's story from the very first pages.

Seles experienced a lot of highs, and a few very tragic lows in her first 30 years and she does a good job of striking balance when writing about both. I couldn't help but silently cheer along when she was describing the good times and cry along at some of the bad. I still don't understand much about tennis, but I now have a greater appreciation for the dedication and sacrifice professional tennis players must make to succeed in the sport. I also imagine that tennis fans will get a great deal more out of this book than non-fans will, as Seles provides an insider's point of view on the business side of tennis that the general public never sees.

What I appreciated most about this book is that Seles wrote about her experiences with both compassion for herself and a healthy dose of humility. She never wallows in self-pity or denies her own shortcomings but she also acknowledges the very real pain she experienced at the hands of others - classmates at the tennis academy, the ruthless press, and her attacker in Germany. She balances this well, however, by also acknowledging the tremendous positive role her family played in keeping her grounded and the support she received from fans, fellow players, and her coaching teams.

In so many memoirs, the subject is either cast as the hero or the victim of their life story. Seles, however, does an excellent job of reconciling in the end that, like everyone else, she is both. It's a satisfying journey to take with her and I found Seles to be nothing but sincere and likeable the entire way.

THANK YOU, MONICA!!
When it comes to athletes and their off-court, off-field problems, I usually think, "Big deal; all that money you get should make the hurt go away!"

But Monica Seles's memoir is different. From the start, she's not writing to beg for sympathy. This is her story of her struggle with compulsive overeating (the reason I picked this book up, as I, too, struggle with emotional and compulsive overeating), the horrific stabbing she endured in Germany, and shortly after that, discovering her beloved dad/coach was terminally ill, not in that order!

I felt awful for her, for the rude awakening she received in realizing how cold the business of tennis is, not to mention the lack of justice when her attacker was simply given probation and set free, plus she had to pay his freaking legal bills.

It was good to see that even celebrities struggle and cry, although for me, Monica Seles isn't like other celebrities. She seems miles above all the others in her authenticity and grit.

I loved this book and read it in 2 days. I cried so much in reading it, I saw myself in so much of her struggle with her weight and food, and appreciate her honesty in sharing difficult memories and episodes in her life that anyone else would rather pretend never happened.

Five stars!!!

Terrific memoir!
I don't read a lot of memoirs, but I was really drawn to this one because of Ms. Seles' honesty and openness in her recent New York Times interview. I've been a fan of hers for many years, and have always wondered how she coped with the horrible stabbing.

In this memoir, Ms. Seles is not only inspirational, she is vulnerable and thoughtful. She lets down her guard completely and tells her story without whining or complaining, a real plus. This was very moving and I think the book can be beneficial to fans of Monica Seles as well as those who are struggling to overcome eating disorders and/or grieving the loss of a parent.

I remain a huge fan.


Lisa McMann, New York Times bestselling author of Wake