David Senra

I give myself strict orders.

Take it one point at a time.

Make your opponent work for everything.

No matter what happens, hold your head up.

And for God's sake, enjoy it, or at least try to enjoy moments of it, even the pain, even the losing, if that's what's in store for you.

I close my eyes and say, control what you can control.

Control what you can control.

He repeats that line over and over again throughout the book.

I say it again, aloud.

Saying it aloud makes me feel brave.

What you feel doesn't matter in the end.

It's what you do that makes you brave.

And then he ends the chapter trying to answer the question he gets asked all the time, like you have a very unusual life.

What is this like?

People often ask what it's like, this tennis life, and I can never think how to describe it.

But this word comes closest.

More than anything else, it's a wrenching, thrilling, horrible, astonishing whirl.

He'd rather torture them into greatness.

And when you read a book about Jensen, you realize he did the same for himself.

I think Agassi, after reading and rereading all these parts about his relationship with his dad, was tortured into greatness against his will.