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.’