A Will to Win

A heartwarming tale of a young tennis star who battled to overcome a crippling disease Eight years ago at the age of eighteen, everything was going Alice Peterson's way. She was one of the top national players in Britain, an immediate contemporary of Tim Henman, and about to take up a tennis scholarship in America, the first step towards a fully professional career on the circuit. But almost overnight her happy, secure and successful world was thrown into disarray when, just weeks before leaving for America, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Before the year was out, Alice was essentially bedridden and, rather than spending her days dreaming of winning Wimbledon, she was praying for relief from the all-consuming pain of her disease. Arthritis is often associated with old age, but Alice proves that no matter what age you are or how fit you are, for the unlucky few, there is no escape from this agonizing illness. Alice's brilliant account of both her tennis-mad childhood and her battle with arthritis is an uplifting, humorous and heart-warming story. She shares her memories of growing up in the eighties, of the extremely competitive junior tennis circuit, of watching Becker win Wimbledon for the first time, and of learning to live with a degenerative disease. This is a compelling tale, wittily told, that is absolutely unputdownable.