All In: Becoming World Champion

by Laura Massaro, Rod Gilmour (Contributor), Eleanor Preston (Editor)

All In is Laura Massaro's honest, raw and personal story of how she became one of the greatest squash players the UK has ever produced. From a shy, young athlete sometimes crippled by nerves and self-doubt, to a World No.1 and World Champion in an intense, gruelling sport, All In takes you on a deeply personal and inspiring journey.

Laura is candid about the struggles of balancing relationships off the court with success on it, not least with her coach and husband Danny, and she takes you behind the scenes on the darkly competitive world of the professional squash circuit.

From her battles on court to her fight behind the scenes to establish equal prizemoney at squash's biggest tournament, this is a rollercoaster ride of emotions that takes the reader into the head and heart of one of the world's most accomplished sportswomen. All In is a story of tears, turmoil and, ultimately, triumph.

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Featuring guest chapters from Laura’s close team as well actual diary entries from the time, Laura Massaro’s All In gives an in-depth insight into the realities of competing at the highest level of one of the world’s most gruelling sports.

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“Laura Massaro embodies everything when it comes to being ALL IN. Her story is inspiring because it show that you don’t have to be the most talented, the fastest or the most skilful in order to reach the top. What you need is the mindset and Laura’s mindset made her one of the toughest competitors out there.”
Amanda Sobhy No.1 US squash player

“A unique insight into one of Britain’s unsung sporting champions.”
Nick Matthew, former World No.1 squash player

308 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2021

About the author

Laura Massaro is one of England's greatest squash players of all time. She began her glittering career in 2000, breaking into the world's top 50 two years later, and lifting her first Tour title in 2005 at the German Open.

She quickly ranked within the world top 20 lifting the Wolverhampton Open in both 2006 and 2007, climbing into the top ten in the World Rankings in 2008 before lifting the Monte Carlo Classic title.

In 2011, she beat Malaysian superstar Nicol David to secure the win at the Cleveland Classic, as well as taking her first World Series event at the US Open - finishing the year as World No.3.

Having lost the 2012 World Championship final to Nicol David, Massaro bounced back to claim the KL Open title in early 2013 before becoming the first British woman since 1991 to secure the British Open crown.

Massaro lifted her 15th Tour title in March 2014, later in the year winning the World Championships in Penang - making history by becoming the first Englishwoman to hold both major titles. Two silver medals followed for Massaro at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Massaro had a hugely successful finish to 2015, capturing several PSA World Tour titles, including the Macau Open. She also won back-to-back World Series events in the autumn of 2015, securing the US Open title and the Qatar Classic.

She went on to reach the final of the Hong Kong Open, Massaro became the new Women’s World No.1 for the first time in her career at the start of 2016. The rest of the year saw World Championship defeat followed by wins at the China Open and NetSuite Open, as well as becoming the first Englishwoman to win the PSA Dubai World Series Finals.

Massaro began 2017 in strong form, winning the 2017 British Open - the first Englishwoman since Janet Morgan in 1951 to lift the prestigious British Open title twice. She then successfully defended her PSA Dubai World Series Finals crown in 2017, before winning the Monte Carlo Classic to round out 2018.
She retired in the British Open in Hull in 2019, ranked No.10 in the world, giving her an unbroken run of 11 years in the world top ten.

Reviews

[Jennifer Reid · Rating 1 out of 5]

All in - and that seems to aptly label the problem I had with this book. This vanity publishing effort could have benefitted from a much wiser editor for numerous reasons. As a former competitive squash player I was drawn to this book. However, I was gravely disappointed by the complete lack of deep reflection offered by this memoir? Diary? Training guide? Self-help book? Pop psychology lesson? Essentially this book is thematically all over the place.

The author has credibility in the sport but as we tend to see today, “influencers” in one arena, seem to believe they have the wisdom to “educate” in all other realms - in this case areas that she displays complete lack of understanding and hence could actually mislead readers around important research and theories better handled by those experts. It’s one thing to present insights as personal memoir vs as an expert but in that realm she seems reluctant to be vulnerable enough to do that self examination beyond a few superficial insights. I don’t read books by “celebrities” (although I’ll have to admit being a squash pro is about as far from celebrity you can choose in terms of global awareness) to find out about other disciplines. I want to hear about what and how that person learned about them-self and leave it at that. For example, don’t explain cognitive behavioural therapy to me as if you’re a clinician just because you were treated with that as in intervention - give me insight on your experience not on your still limited understanding and knowledge of that science.

Instead of being “all in” she should have left about 75% of this out. She is not equipped to explain fishbone diagrams (and if so why wouldn’t you just put an illustration of a diagram in instead of explaining it through paragraphs of words - isn’t that the point of a diagram - to get around all the words?). She has even less credibility to distill Heidegger and Nietzsche. This is not for an educated audience.

All I can say is too much information in this book and a lot of it not interesting or well-presented. Stick to playing squash.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot of interest here for anyone interested in sports, coaching sports, or performing in athletic endeavors (or really probably any highly focused or competitive endeavor). I especially found interesting the part where Laura changed her swing and also her descriptions of the psychology of what she was experiencing mentally during key matches.

[Jade · Rating 2 out of 5]

Feel bad for this as I've met Laura and she's lovely, and there's no doubt she's an amazing athlete who worked incredibly hard. This doesn't diminish any of that but on the whole I had a hard time reading this.

There are far too many red flags or bad moments, and I can’t believe The Husband chapter was committed to print. Two paragraphs of it are particularly awful.

[Juan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant! I was already a fan of Laura, the player. Now, I’m a bigger fan of Laura, the person.