Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi - Paperback

One of the best autobiographies I've ever read. I say this not from a tennis perspective but from anyone looking to learn about a person struggling to overcome hardships through his remarkable journey. Highly recommend it - and don't worry, for anyone who doesn't follow tennis - you do not need to be well into tennis to appreciate this autobiography.

However. When he married Steffi you can put down the book

un ptit chef d'oeuvre A LIRE ABSOLUMENT

Whenever Andre Agassi played, it made you weak in the knees. His grace and style were so unique that women fell for him. On behalf of all the young women of 90s, I can say that watching him on television was a treat to the eyes. An acclaimed hero and distinguished celebrity. The larger-than-life personality loved by his fans and hated by the media. An inspiration to the youngsters who would love to trade their lives for his…… The book gets the human behind the larger-than-life persona. After completion, the first thought that crosses your mind is how can real-life be so different from what we believe and see. Feels like complete fiction- too haunting to be true. The book starts with the last game of Andre, the end, the pain that he is undergoing, and the hatred that he has for the game…. this builds great confusion in the minds of the readers regarding how can you hate the game you play with such elan, how can you hate something that gave you name, fame and money… desperation arises in the reader to unravel the truth for this hatred and so the mysterious beginning makes the book un put down able. Andre from childhood hated his life because of the pressure created by his father Mike Agassi to turn him into a champion. An aggressive, tyrannical, dominating father whose purpose in life was to make his children champions. The rigorous training breaks down the older three but Andre, the prodigy with raw talent, makes Mike realize his dream. The emotional trauma that Andre undergoes when his father makes him hit a certain number of balls every day based on a mathematical calculation, the machine he created to hit balls christened “A Dragon” by Agassi, the silence of his mother, the violent nature of his father makes Andre rebellious. Pierced body, a mohawk, makeup, and drugs were ways he dealt with the stress. He is sad, anguished, in pain, and hates everything around him. This story could belong to any ordinary youngster who is put under performance pressure and violent surroundings. The silent conflicts that Andre was going through were a perfect recipe for mental health issues. You hate Mike Agassi all along, but tears swell up and you cry with him at the end when he tells Agassi to quit tennis. Finally, he sees his son’s pain and realizes the mess he has made of his son. Agassi lived a life of lies, he spoke to the press in their language…something that they would love to hear. His heart and mind contradicted every word that came out of his mouth. Once the press asked him that would his son play tennis, he immediately responded by saying that Jaden would love to play tennis. This was the reply the media wanted. In reality, he and Steffi never wanted their kids to take up tennis and had decided that they will never push their children. They both decided against making a tennis court in their backyard. In spite of being such huge players of their time, they did not have a tennis court in their backyard and went to a public tennis court and rent it for an hour to practice for a charity match that they had to play. The writing is so perfect that it feels like a visual. An engaging autobiography that will interest those also who have not followed his journey. You live the life of Agassi with him. You feel for him, tears swell when he is in pain, feel delighted when he is happy, feel joyful when he starts seeing Stefanie, your heart breaks with his break-ups and your soul is grateful when he is not penalized for drug use. Andre has been so open about the romantic escapades and drug usage, I was in awe of the candidness with which he narrated the good, bad & ugly incidents of his life. The grace with which he accepted the mistakes and learnings after each experience can be inspirational for all the readers. As a fan who has followed his tennis journey closely, it breaks you to see the hurt the game has caused, and the lies that he has lived. Personally, I loved his journey after Steffi Graf came into his life. The simplicity with which they accepted each other’s presence in their lives asserts the fact that the top positions are always lonely and the heart yearns for a simple life with people whom you love. The flamboyance was only restricted to the news and media. I feel so grateful that Agassi lived his life before the social media era. In the present digital era, the world along with his father would have destroyed him completely as a person. The sports writers announced his end many times and he bounced back always. A two-decades-long international sports career that he lived is never heard of. He made records, won championships, and played with the generation on the way out, his counterparts and the generation that would shine on the world stage after him…….and all this with innate hate towards the game. Maybe he didn’t know how else to live his life. Andre, without formal education in his life, understood the importance of education and created a foundation that looked after the education of underprivileged children. He titles this phase of his life “The beginning”, and visits the school whenever he has time. Somewhere there is regret for not having completed formal education. This school is everything he dreamt of, a HAPPY place !!! A must-read for all…..irrespective of the fact whether you are a sports enthusiast or not.

Most autobiographies, especially sports autobiographies, are just a chronological series of events with insight into each event. It's usually not new insight and is mostly just filled with platitudes and cliches that the author already gave in press conferences. There are always a few interesting tidbits in each of these autobiographies, and reading a bullet point summary of those tidbits in an online review is just as good as reading the actual book. Agassi's autobiography is more like a novel. You read it and think it would make a phenomenal movie, the way it starts at the very end and then flashbacks to the beginning. You can't just read about the revelations in some online review and think you've gotten everything out of this book. This is a book that needs to be read front to back. It's superbly written -- not by Agassi himself, as he never had the education to pull that off, but he did spend thousands of hours on it and as a longtime fan I know that this is his authentic voice. In a recent interview, Andre expanded on why he and Pete Sampras were opposites by saying that when they saw each other in October 2009, Andre realized that Sampras had also just released an autobiography and tried to start a conversation by mentioning how he was so glad how his turned out, and how many thousands of hours of sweat and tears he put into it. He said that Sampras just looked at him like he was crazy. Sampras felt that an autobiography was just an encyclopedic sort of thing, not a cathartic baring of the soul. When you compare their books, it shows. Another thing that separates this book is Agassi's remarkable memory. Agassi has always been known as one of the best analysts of the sport, and has always astounded the press with his point-by-point recollection of matches that had taken place decades before. After I play a recreational tennis match, I can barely remember the points I just played. You could ask Agassi about a point he played in 1988 and he'd be able to tell you what was going through his head, how fast the serve came at him, the sequence of shots, what someone in the crowd shouted out, what the temperature was, the humidity, the wind speed. He mentions in the book how he seems to notice the most trivial things, and once he notices them they forever stay in his mind. I'm sure if his memory was somehow measured, it would be found to be in the very upper tier in the populace. This combined with his deep, empathetic ability to notice and understand human behavior creates a truly astounding read. It is rare to find an athlete as intelligent as Agassi, and if his father hadn't been so anti-education, I believe he could have had a brilliant academic career and flourished in some intellectual field. Perhaps psychology. Sports psychology would have been an easy fit, certainly! You don't have to be a tennis fan to enjoy this book, although you will certainly get a little bit more out of it. Similarly, a sports fan will be able to get more of it than someone who doesn't care much for any sport. However, there is not a person out there who could not gain something from reading this book. This is not simply a tennis story, or a sports story. This is a human story. In regards to the crystal meth revelation, I will say this in his defense: 1. Testing positive for a recreational drug (crystal meth is a recreational, performance inhibiting drug, NOT a performance enhancer) in 1997, the year that he started and stopped taking the drug, had the penalty of a 3 month suspension. 3 months. That's like a nice little vacation to get rested and refreshed for the rest of the season. 2. In 1997, Agassi won nothing. He was losing in the first round of every tournament. He was playing challenger events, the minor leagues of tennis, and even losing in those. It is true that he won a few matches, and he did have a surprising run at the US Open when everyone thought he was going to quit tennis any minute. This was not fair to the players he beat - he should have been suspended at the time. However, when you really think about it, it just speaks to his talent that at his absolute lowest, when he was quite literally disabled physically, when he went out in front of that New York crowd and felt the magic and realized that he wanted to win, he was still able to muster up the game to beat world class players. At the end of the day, the only person hurt by his drug use was himself. Andre has said in recent interviews that he would happily have 1997 thrown out of his career. Have all of his results from that year blacked out. It makes absolutely no difference to the total number of titles and championships he won. 3. For the past decade, Agassi has been the most admirable person to ever come out tennis. What he's given back is remarkable. What he's done for the sport is unmatched. Tennis is an unpopular sport in the United States, but people would always tune in for Agassi, and this book is selling like hot cakes. People love Agassi, and for good reason. This doesn't justify him lying to the ATP, but we need to keep this in perspective. It's important to understand that this doesn't diminish his legacy in the slightest. He is still one of the best tennis players of all time -- and as you'll see in this book, he may have achieved twice as much if he hadn't stumbled and fallen and beaten himself for so much of his life. He hated tennis, he admits it. His father, a man who would make Joe Jackson quiver with fear, thrust him into it as a toddler. He makes a strong argument for why it is the loneliest sport in the world, the sport most likely to produce insanity in its players. On the other hand, look at what it gave him. He loved holding up trophies and gold medals. He would never have met Stefanie without it. There was a duality to his life that I'm sure we can all relate to in some way.

An amazing book either you play/love tennis or not.

Fantastic read. Brutal introspection from a legend