Candid Andre Agassi Tells All
Comments (0) A post-retirement confession, Andre Agassi‘s new book, “Open,” is fraught with shocking details of of his past life as a tennis great.
Unlike most mid-life autobiographies, “Open” is not supposed to be a list of awards and display of accreditation. With Pulitzer Prize winner J.R. Moehringer as his co-writer, Agassi lays his intimate secrets (some of them past lies) for all to examine.
In addition to addressing the unfortunate mullet Mohawk toupee he sported in the early part of his professional tennis career (a hairpiece that once came apart in the shower before the French Open and had to be reconstructed using bobby pins), Agassi discusses his tennis beginnings and a stint with crystal meth in 1997.
His father, a former Olymic Boxer, insisted even from early childhood that Agassi pursue a militant tennis career. The son hated tennis and his father for most of the brilliant career that did follow.
One of only six men to have won all four Grand Slam events– Wimbledon, the French Open, US Open and Australian Open– and former husband to Brooke Shields, Agassi has since married female tennis star, Steffi Graf, and retired in 2006 from tennis.
Confession is better late than never, but perhaps not lying to the in the first place about his crystal meth use would have been the better option. Instead, his year-long recreational drug use was called ignorant and blamed on a former assistant, “Slim.” The three month probation that followed probably would have been better than nine years of guilt for lying to the ATP.
All in all, “Open” presents a very straightforward and honest view of Andre Agassi, the guy under the Mohawk hairpiece that turned out to have some serious talent.
