Game Changer:
An Aussie’s Transformative
US College Tennis Journey

Ever since age eleven, Chris Bates, has been in search of success. As one of Australia’s best young tennis players, he was constantly confronted by the ever present ‘wisdom’ of Australian tennis coaches who insisted if you didn’t ‘make it’ by the age of twenty, your career, and your life, was a failure.

In this memoir of heartbreaking losses, injury, financial stress, and recurring heart problems, Bates teeters on the edge of quitting and walking away from the sport he loves so much. His last, desperate throw of the dice rests with his arrival in wind-swept Oklahoma, America’s heartland, as a student-athlete. What happens in this time at Oklahoma State University as a Cowboy will go on to change his life forever.

Game Changer is an inspirational, un-put-downable memoir recommended for budding athletes, sporting parents, coaches, educators, and anybody embarking on a US College journey as a student-athlete. With trademark enthusiasm and humour, Bates invites you on a journey through this rollercoaster ride of adventure and self-discovery as he struggles to challenge the status quo of ‘making it’ and redefine what success truly means.