Author: Andre Agassi
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages: 388
"It's no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature." It is this statement in Open that touches a chord in your heart. It doesn't matter if you are a tennis fan or not. It doesn't matter if you've hated eight-Grand Slam-winner Andre Agassi's on-court and off-court antics. And never mind if you've sworn off autobiographies for good. You read this one line in the book, and you want to read more.
We love flawed heroes. Top seeds make for good tennis but it's those who've been there and fallen from grace only to fight their way back into the charts and people's hearts are the ones that make matches memorable. Everyone remembers Pete Sampras as a great player, but it's his arch-rival Andre Agassi who still makes headlines.
Three years after his retirement, when Agassi's autobiography, Open, was released late last year, little did he know that he would be opening another can of worms. His admission that during one low period he found solace in crystal methamphetamine, supplied by his “assistant,” and later lied about it to tennis officials, thus avoiding a three-month suspension, caused ripples through the tennis world.
It was just one of his secrets that he let out in Open. The other, almost unbelievably, is that he hates tennis. Why? "Because tennis is so damned lonely. Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer's opponent provides a companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him like anyone else... Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement..."
Agassi takes the reader into confidence as he tells the story of his life - of how he played tennis because his obsessive Armenian father left him with no other choice or education, of his banishment to a tennis camp in Florida which he likens to a prison, his rebellion (long hair, earrings, painted nails, pink gear) that makes him a 1980s sports icon and turning pro at 16. But just when his lightning-fast return promises to change his career, he gets engulfed in a storm raging inside him. As Agassi battles his own demons and duels with his rivals on court he discovers that his greatest enemy is neither Boris Becker nor Jimmy Connors, neither Pete Sampras nor the media. It is perfection. In his quest to hit every ball perfectly - just like his boxer father Mike wanted - he exposes himself to several blows.
The mere acceptance of this fact makes it much easier for his game and his soul. He puts a failed marriage to Brooke Shields behind him as he prepares once again to regain the top position. This time the goal is for a bigger purpose - a school for underprivileged children he wants to build in his hometown Las Vegas. And on his way to the top, he meets the woman he always wanted to be with - Stefanie (Steffi) Graf.
Agassi likens his life to “a painting from the Italian Renaissance” of “a young man, naked, standing on a cliff” at the Louvre in Paris. The painting is most probably French artist Girodet's Scene of the Flood. But it's not important that Agassi got the period and the artist wrong. It's significant how vividly he remembers the painting. He reiterates that he doesn't forget. And he brings this near-photographic memory to every pivotal match and every public relationship.
Unlike most sports biographies/autobiographies, Open is not about the making of a hero. It's not about the image but the person who makes up the image. It's about how a boy, who was forced to play tennis in the Nevada desert, turned into a tennis superstar of sorts, when he didn't want to even play the game. Credit goes to Agassi and his collaborator J R Moehringer for actually having the guts to write something with such honesty.
Of mismatched ambitions and gruelling matches, Open, like Agassi's game is all about grace, speed, style and power. You don't want to miss this one.
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