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by Jimmy Connors (Author)
The Outsider is a no-holds-barred memoir by the original bad boy of tennis, Jimmy Connors.
Connors ignited the tennis boom in the 1970s with his aggressive style of play, turning his matches with John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, and Ivan Lendl into prizefights. But it was his prolonged dedication to his craft that won him the public's adoration. He capped off one of the most remarkable runs in tennis history at the age of 39 when he reached the semifinals of the 1991 U.S. Open, competing against players half his age.
More than just the story of a tennis champion, The Outsider is the uncensored account of Connors' life, from his complicated relationship with his formidable mother and his storybook romance with tennis legend Chris Evert, to his battles with gambling and fidelity that threatened to derail his career and his long-lasting marriage to Playboy playmate Patti McGuire.
When he retired from tennis twenty years ago, Connors all but disappeared from public view. In The Outsider, he is back at the top of his game, and as feisty, outspoken, and defiant as ever.
This autobiography includes original color photographs from the author.
Back Jacket
Jimmy Connors is a working-man's hero, a people's champion who could tear the cover off a tennis ball, just as he tore the cover of country-club gentility off his sport. A renegade from the wrong side of the St. Louis tracks, Connors broke the rules with a radically aggressive style of play and bad boy antics that turned his matches into entertaining prizefights. In 1974 alone, he won 95 out of 99 matches, all of them while wearing the same white shorts he washed in the sink of his hotel bathrooms. In The Outsider, Connors tells the complete, uncensored story of his life and career, setting the record straight about his formidable mother, Gloria; his very public romances; and his famous opponents. Connors reveals how his issues with obsessive-compulsive disorder, dyslexia, gambling, and women at various times threatened to derail his career. The Outsider is a grand slam of a memoir written by a man once again at the top of his game, as feisty, unvarnished, and defiant as ever.
