Open: An autobiography by André Agassi

In an age when average footballers in their mid-twenties can seemingly get away with bringing out their memoirs, it is refreshing to read about the formation and whole career of a world-class sportsman. The book caused a furore on its launch last November, when the revelation that Agassi had taken crystal meth gave rise to a lot of sententious nonsense that was only surpassed by the Tiger Woods débâcle a few weeks later.

The urgent present tense narrative starts at ‘The End’, with a tableau from Agassi’s swansong tournament, the 2006 US Open, where we learn, in the space of a couple of pages, that he is a virtual tennis cripple afflicted by chronic self-doubt and that...

‘I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion, and always have.'

A great hook.

To see the reason behind this sentiment, we are transported back to Las Vegas in the 1970s, where the seven year-old Agassi with bowl haircut (hair is a recurring theme) is getting bawled at by his brutal monomaniacal father, an Iranian immigrant of Armenian descent (the family name is apparently an americanisation of ‘Aghassian’), on a DIY backyard court. Mike Agassi, we are told, was a boxer of some talent, who made Olympic Games appearances but didn’t cut it professionally. We are rather obviously impressed that he is living out a failed sporting dream through his youngest son. Agassi has to hit 2,500 balls per day, spewed at him relentlessly by a custom-built machine – ‘the dragon’; according to the juggernaut logic of his father:

‘A child who hits one million balls each year will be unbeatable.’

 Sure enough, come puberty, Agassi has wiped the floor with the local talent and exhausted his father’s wherewithal. He is sent to the (in)famous Bollettieri academy in Florida, a tennis boot camp run by the leathery perma-tanned Nick Bollettieri. Having had his fill of authority, Agassi starts to rebel. This section of the book runs like a teen flick of the same era – André too cool for school (despite having a high IQ), gets his ears pierced, sports a Mohawk, dabbles with maquillage, boozes and duly flunks his token education. No matter, he is clearly the prize asset at the academy and, after paying his dues at the lesser tournaments, soon hits the national and international consciousness with his powerful, direct play and signature frosted mullet and denim shorts.

The presence of his father in his style of play is ex post facto clear – those trademark short backlift forearm-dominant groundstrokes, the mainstay of his game, are so obviously a racqueting analogue of the pugilist’s stock-in-trade, the jab, as to be almost painful. But the influence runs much deeper than the physical – what strikes one, in the first half of the book, is just how antipathetic Agassi is towards his fellow players (and, more naturally, journalists), from his initial meetings with the old masters (to be fair, no-one seems to have a good thing to say about Jimmy Connors) through to early skirmishes with his contemporaries, there is scarce a kindly word. Michael Chang, for instance, gets a hammering just for being a devout Christian.

As Agassi’s world ranking rises, so does his entourage, the extra pressures taking their toll. From the early hand-to-mouth, on-the-road life, managed by his older brother ‘Philly’ (benignly portrayed as a classic winner ‘loser’), he acquires a close-knit group – Bollettieri as the needs-must general manager, a rich fast-talking childhood friend called Perry, a pastor named ‘J.P’ and, first and foremost, his acknowledged ‘surrogate father’, Gil Reyes, a muscle-man fitness autodidact with a sideline in homespun philosophy, who teams up with Agassi in 1989, and stays with him thereafter.

This first period of Agassi’s professional career is related in a nice mix of on-court action (he has an almost photographic memory of his matches) and anecdote, as he makes slam semis in ’89 and a breakthrough year in 1990, reaching his first two slam finals - we see the start of the Sampras-Agassi rivalry with the former’s crushing straight-sets win in the US Open. Agassi’s first major success is helping the USA win the Davis Cup (he will be part of three Davis Cup triumphs in total). There are some gems along the way such as the frantic hairpiece rigging before the final of the 1990 French Open:

‘Warming up before the match, I pray. Not for a win, but for my hairpiece to stay on.’

We also learn of some player idiosyncrasies (my favourite: how Boris Becker – an especial enemy – always points his tongue to the place where he is going to serve).

Still, come the end of 1991, for all his obvious talent, Agassi has competed in three slam finals and lost the lot.

A stylistic feature of the book that many will find irritating, but is probably in keeping with Agassi’s character nonetheless, is a pervading facile fatalism. This is particularly pronounced in the romantic part of the narrative, where his current wife Steffi Graf is presented as the inexorable endpoint, and all his relationships are destined to founder upon this future fact, most notably his seven-year liaison with Brooke Shields. It extends to his professional life too, Wimbledon is set up as anti-tennis – ‘I’ll hug my father again before I embrace Wimbledon’ – and lo! it is the scene of his first Grand Slam triumph in 1992 – a five-set marathon against Ivanisevic.

Agassi’s second coming is under new coach, Brad Gilbert, who comes on board in 1994. Like so many of Agassi’s confidantes, Gilbert is painted as an unorthodox rough diamond -  a limited ‘hacker’ of a player and author of ‘Winning ugly’, he takes a more pragmatic approach to Agassi’s game. After early defeats at the French and Wimbledon, Agassi finally lands his home event, the US Open as an unseeded player and reaches his career peak the following year, winning the Australian Open and taking the number one ranking (he partly attributes this to shaving his head and disposing with the sham ‘Image is everything’ advertising mistake of his youth). A less successful 1996 at least sees Agassi claim Olympic Gold (an especially pleasing moment for his father) before injury wrecks his 1997. The nadir of his career sees Agassi having to play Challenger tournaments in 1998 to get back up the rankings. The stardust is still there however and the climax of this third coming is the French Open crown the following year, when he beats Andrei Medvedev in five sets to become the first male player to attain a career ‘Golden Slam’ (the four slams plus Olympic Gold). 

Granting a little airbrushing, Agassi’s courtship of Steffi Graf is genuinely moving, from distant age-cohort admirer, through snatched surreptitious exchanges on tour to the realisation of something good and robust come the third date. The union is metaphorically cemented in the seriocomic alpha male meeting of Mike Agassi and Peter Graf, with André having to intervene in their macho impromptu set-to, as they vie for the title of ‘pushiest parent’.

The book is not without its banal and saccharine passages – generally allied to Agassi’s love of easy-listening gloop (remember the Streisand affair?) – but these are very much the lull, the filler, before the storm, as we ride with him, Gil and Brad, as he prepares to go into battle once more, culminating in the next high-intensity final encounter with Sampras:

 ‘Pete, as always, Pete.’

After getting together with Graf (they marry in 2001), Agassi noticeably mellows and, the odd bit of maudlin age-related angst aside, it seems that any success in this homeward stretch of his career is just a bonus. You sense that he is even enjoying his tennis at times. He achieves further slam success and intermittently regains the number one spot. He parts company with Gilbert in 2002 and takes on the straight-talking Aussie Darren Cahill as coach for the final four years of his career. His player assessments are as generous now as they were mean in the old days – Federer and Nadal getting especial praise for their different talents.

We rejoin ‘The End’, as, after eight Grand Slam triumphs (four Australian Opens, two US Opens, one French Open and one Wimbledon), and sixty tour singles titles in total, the 36 year-old Agassi overcomes Marcos Baghdatis with a Herculean effort in the 2nd round before succumbing to Benjamin Becker in the 3rd round of the US Open. Cue that gushing, slightly embarrassing farewell speech.

As coda, ‘The Beginning’ is a report on the ‘André Agassi College Preparatory Academy’, a mission to help disadvantaged kids in Vegas and clearly the focal point of Agassi’s future energies – far more worthwhile than the fatuous ‘seniors tour’. And eminently fitting, for the man who stares out at us on the front cover is the quintessential boy-man, still the seven year-old wielding a wooden racquet on the back cover.

I strongly recommend this book to tennis fans, sports fans and anyone with an interest in sports psychology.

Open: An autobiography by André Agassi is published by Harper Collins, pp. 388, £20.00.

 

Comments

[Dupin]

Hard to disagree with you!

[Charles le Roi]

fantastic review Dupin, I am now seriously tempted to read it despite the distaste I felt when the crystal meth 'revelations' were serialised before publication. I honestly felt, and probably still feel, that agassi was engaged in a cheap publicity trick. his admission adds very little to the agassi story i feel. that he was very rich but not completely happy? big swing, wouldn't be the first. that he managed to dupe the sports governing body? well done, but i don't really care if they don't manage to stamp out recreational drugs - they aren't performance enhancing. that he wanted to come clean because he feels guilty? would have been more honourable to keep it to himself. that he wanted to sell more books? now we're talking....