Open - Andre Agassi

Open

An autobiography by Andre Agassi, published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
A powerful story combining memory and in-depth research that took two years to write, Open gives extraordinary insight into the life of a top professional tennis player.
Candidly outlining the high and low points of his career, the story of Las Vegas born, Agassi’s life to-date, is packed into 388 pages with a smattering of photos taken at various stages, including cover colour plates at seven and now.

Starting in recent times at the end of Agassi’s tennis career, the autobiography then takes us back to its beginning. What drove him year after year makes compelling reading.


Agassi describes his early years at the Nick Bollettiere Tennis Academy and the greats he met there, at a time when they were starters like himself - a place he describes as a prison camp. “People like to call the Bollettiere Tennis Academy a boot camp, but it’s really a glorified prison camp”.

We learn how Agassi was driven by his father, why he shaved his head, dressed in stand out clothing, swore at linesmen and the umpire, and won gloriously and lost dismally.

How he went about gathering an entourage around him to coach, plan, and mentor, and how important this support team was, is also covered.

We can understand why he married actor Brooke Shields and what led to his second marriage to Steffi Graff (or Stephanie as she likes to be called, Steffi is her mother’s name for her and was picked up by the press).

And, at the heart of the story, is why although he hated tennis but despite the physical pains and aches and the mental anguish, he continued to play professionally for twenty years, because it was the only thing he knew.

It’s a tennis lover’s dream read, with descriptions of every match and every player he has faced across the net, including the tussles with Pete Sampras, involving 34 matches during their careers, with Sampras winning 20 of those encounters.

With his own unhappy school experience, Agassi current focus is to provide education for children who need help, through the Agassi Foundation.
(www.agassifoundation.org.)

You’d have to ask yourself how the book was put together and it’s all there in the
acknowledgments, which appear at the end. Agassi explains how the publication “would not exist without my friend J.R. Moehringer”.

Agassi talked for hours into J.R’s tape recorder. “No topics were out of bounds, so our sessions were sometimes fun, sometimes painful. We didn’t go chronologically or topically. We simply let the talk flow, prodded now and then by stacks of clippings collected by our superb, young soon to be famous researcher Ben Cohen. After many months J.R. and I had a crate of tape cassettes, for better or worse, the story of my life. Kim Wells turned those tapes into a transcript and JR. somehow transformed this into a story”.

I couldn’t put this one down. I am a tennis player, but here’s a story that would appeal to anyone interested in knowing what makes an outstanding athlete tick.

Rating 9.5/10