Mr Nastase: The Autobiography Hardcover – June 1, 2004

This is an entertaining book about one of the most charismatic players of the Open era. Win or loose he enjoyed the game like few ever did. He was active on the ATP tour until 37. And, he still reached the 4th round of the US Open at 36.The book's appendix discloses fascinating statistics. You can see his win/loss track record against many players. His career being so long, it tied the Australian era to the Open era. Thus, he had a 9-2 record against an aging Rod Laver (8 years older) but a 3-5 record against a young McEnroe (13 years younger). These records don't mean anything. One champion is aging while the other is entering his prime.As a man, he had much fun. Per his own estimate, he bedded 2,500 groupies. He had a wonderful love affair during his first marriage. Even though it predictably ended in divorce , the divorce was not wrenching affair vs what Becker and McEnroe endured. Nastase's relationship with women was similar to the one he had with the public. No one could be mad at him for too long.Nastase lost mental control in his matches. Unlike Connors and McEnroe who could create winning strategies out of the chaos, Nastase was the victim of his shenanigans. His bad behavior cost him tens of thousands of dollars in penalties.As a result of his lack of mental control, Nastase's legacy is a fraction of what his talent warranted. He won only two Grand Slam tournaments (73 French Open and 72 US Open). Tens of players have far greater legacies.Nevertheless, Nastase still fascinates. In fact Federer's versatile game most resembles Nastase. Both men have the ability to win on any surface against any opponents, and hit shots nobody else can. Adding Nastase's unpredictable behavior to the versatility of his game just contributed to the legend.There is no doubt Nastase was an all around extraordinarily gifted athlete. As an aging star, he had to play sports he had never learned for various TV shows. After just 5 minutes of learning the grip, he hit par on his first golf hole. After Ion Tiriac teaches him ice hockey. Within 15 minutes Nastase was chasing Tiriac around the skating rink. Not bad for a guy who had never skated.The biography gets even more interesting as he retires from the ATP circuit. Because of his profile, he met everybody. He is on a first name basis with Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, George Bush Sr. and Jr, Jack Nicholson, Mick Jagger. He likes everyone of them. Nastase also describes the chronic political crisis plaguing Romania. His firsthand experience makes for a fascinating account about the living condition in this country.If you like this book, I also recommend McEnroe's  You Cannot Be Serious , Becker's  The Player: The Autobiography  and Sampras'  A Champion's Mind: Lessons from a Life in Tennis . They are all fascinating reportage of tennis superstars.

If I'm not missing any, this is the fourth book published about the charismatic and controversial Ilie Nastase (two of which were published in France). This speaks volumes for the popularity enjoyed by this genius of tennis.Nastase is one of the reasons tennis became so hugely popular back in the 1970s. His talent and personality brought millions of new fans to the game. His combined singles titles (57) and doubles (51) of Grand Prix, WCT and ATP sanctioned tournaments of Open Tennis (since 1968) is only surpassed by John McEnroe - no coincidence here since they are the two greatest natural talents seen in tennis. His Davis Cup record is also phenomenal, playing and winning more matches than anybody else, except Nikki Pietrangeli. Contrary to some erroneous assumptions made by another reviewer, Nastase never left Romania. He did not need to do so, since he was allowed to keep all his earnings. This was part of the deal made with the Romanian Communist authorities, in return for his free and unconditional availability of playing Davis Cup matches.Reading the book I discovered with great surprise and regret that he is not yet a member of the Wimbledon All England Club. After all, this is the guy that won three Wimbledon doubles titles and played in other two singles finals (the one from 1972 is still regarded as one of the most beautiful and memorable ever played at Wimbledon!). Last but not least, he is the one that saved Wimbledon in 1973 when almost all of the big names boycotted the tournament.....I sincerely believe is still not too late for Wimbledon to rectify this injustice.....Finally, I would like to recommend in addition to this wonderful book another excellent one on Nastase. This one, by Richard Evans, was published in 1977 here in USA under "Nasty: Ilie Nastase vs. Tennis" and in England under "Nastase". Any of these and "Mr. Nastase" would certainly make any Nastase fan very, very happy!!

Not great literature, just a great story of a great player, in a great era, playing a great game. Nasty was a charismatic tennis player who had the benefit of playing at an incredible time traveling the world and meeting interesting people. But this book also covers his background growing up in a Communist country and how his talent allowed him to circumvent the tough conditions of most citizens.Maybe the most interesting news in the book is how little he trained early in his career. This of course could never happen now in the current incredibly competitive and lucrative sport. But he consistently talks about how little he trained and how inexperienced he really was as he started his rise as a Junior player.Most people will be interested in the personalities and they are all here, Ion Tiriac and their unique relationship, Stan Smith, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. Of course he must also touch on his personal life of three marriages and children that he loved even though he may not always have been around as a father.Overall this book does an excellent job of detailing the life of a 1970s fun loving tennis pro who was not on the court all day but rather in the discos and bars every night. Nasty, a true legend, on the court and off.

This is a pretty good book from Mr. Nastase. The most fascinating aspect of the book concerns his freewheeling life as a traveling tennis pro, while still being a citizen of communist Romania.He spends a lot of time on his love life, his biggest matches, Davis Cup.Fairly well written, this book gives the reader insight into the rise of tennis' popularity during the 70's and chronicles the author's life in an entertaining way.

Nastase was one of the stars of tennis in the 60's and 70's and still plays today in doubles as a veteran, quite often with his long-time partner Jimmy Connors - together they had won some Grand Slam doubles tournaments including Wimbledon. Nastase was and still is a flamboyant character. On court he was temperamental and often lost his cool, sometimes leading to him being unkindly misjudged when he was actually, in my view for one, in the right.Nastase describes very frankly his behaviour on court and his life generally since his early childhood when he was lucky to be able to play tennis because his father had a job at a tennis club, how he progressed through his own love of the game without any real coaching other than "leave him to it" by someone at the club. The comparison with players nowadays, all so intense and coached up and buffed up and frantic for ranking points is dramatic. He also writes of how difficult it was to live in a Communist country and how careful he had to be not to offend the authorities so that he could be allowed out of the Communist Bloc to play tennis elsewhere.For me who watched Nastase often at Wimbledon, there aren't many later players who can compare with him for pure flair and a joyous love of just playing the game other than the great Roger Federer (whom Nastase mentions as being a player he greatly admires). Federer was also somewhat temperamental on court in his early days but unlike Nastase, Federer decided to stop being temperamental and be fully focused instead.Nastase won many matches, some tournaments and two grand slams - Roland Garros and the US Open (though never, sadly, Wimbledon, though coming very close). In those days, Nastase said, as a player brought up on clay courts he saw Roland Garros as the ultimate prize, not Wimbledon which is usually seen as the ultimate prize today.If he were in the current generation of players he'd still I think be just as temperamental, but he'd certainly have won more Grand Slams because he'd have had more impetus to do so.Like Federer with Nadal, Nastase was up against other great players and successes had to be shared out. In a different era and with more ruthless resolve Nastase could have dominated, but he didn't really have the temperament to want to be all-powerful. He wanted to have a good time!!! When the ranking system first came in, Nastase was ranked No.1 for a while, and would have been ranked No.1 earlier if the system had existed. So Nastase was the first No.1 of the "modern era".Nastase writes of his anxiety at having to retire eventually from the main Tour, and then finally deciding to do so around the same time as his doubles partner Jimmy Connors with whom he'd won some Grand Slam doubles including Wimbledon. But this isn't the end of the book by a long way. He writes of his life all the way up to when the book was published in 2004 and of course he's still going strong, still plays doubles in veteran events. He's had three marriages and some children and a very full, enjoyable life. His book is filled with joie-de-vivre even when as sometimes, inevitably, things might go wrong.This is one of the best autobiographies I've ever read. You wouldn't need to be a tennis fan to simply enjoy Nastase's engaging personality and life history.

Nastase was the original entertainer and bad boy of tennis. He lifted the profile of tennis in the early 70s with his great tennis combined to his explosive and colourful personality.This book is very well written and covers his life and career recounting his great matches, the big bust ups he had on court and his checkered personal life. He is honest about his own failings both as a player and person and what comes through is a really endearing account of a man who at heart just wanted to entertain and be loved by the public.A great book for anyone who can remember those great matches from the 70s and the players who made the era so memorable

An insight into a very different era of tennis. Of course, Nastase behaved and continues to behave appallingly, but that doesn't make his book any less interesting. And sometimes Nastase had surprisingly progressive views for the period, supportive of both gay and transgender players, which perhaps to many people will be somewhat unexpected.

This book was ok spent a lot of timne talking about his matches and giving all the scores in the matches he won which I found very boring and time consuming. Just sketched over his friendship with Jimmy Connorsand Bjon Borg which I thought he was going to write about in this book. All in all a rather boring and drab book

Was big fan of Nastase but disappointed with the book. Maybe it has got 'lost in translation'? Content poor and didn't learn much about the man himself. Not sure if it is the fault of Amazon or not but on two occasions the narrative just stopped and continued with a different subject (obviously some pages missed out). Poor.