Like most great tennis players of the million-dollar era, the career of Jimmy Connors began prenatally. As with Andy Murray, his Grand Slam gene was passed down the maternal line.

THE OUTSIDER: My Autobiography, by Jimmy Connors. Bantam, 2013, 400 pp., $28.99 (hardcover)

Connors' grandmother, known as "Two-Mom," had been a champion in their native East St. Louis, Illinois, in the 1930s. His mother, Gloria, had a few years on the national women's circuit in America after the war, and had subsequently coached film stars in Los Angeles.