Now that tennis is back in the news (with Wimbledon in full swing), it's a perfect time to pick up a book about tennis, preferably one that gets you inside the sport in ways you never would in other ways. Open by Andre Agassi is that book. Part auto-biography, part memoir (and who can really tell the difference), this is remembrance of a life in tennis that will grab you from the opening pages and not let you go until Agassi is finished 386 pages later. It tells the personal story of the man who won eight grand slams (those are the biggest tennis tournaments in the world), became a multimillionaire in prize money and product endorsement, was an international celebrity, and set up a charity in Las Vegas to fund underprivileged kids who had no education, decent living conditions, or prospects for the future.
But the book doesn't just discuss Agassi's achievements and personal life. It also takes a look down the dark corridors of the tennis academies and clubs where tennis is taught and sheds a not-so-glamorous light on the sport. For Agassi, who claims right from the beginning that he hates the sport, says tennis is battering whole generations of unwilling boys and girls by adults who crave the prize money, fame, and the ego-showcase of being the parent of a world-class tennis player.
From the beginning of the book, Agassi regales readers with the torment he was subjected to by his father, an Iranian immigrant named Mike (name Anglicized) Agassi. He married an American woman in Chicago and moved to Las Vegas. Finding a job at the casinos, he looked for a home in the nearby desert. It had to be a home that had a backyard that fit certain required dimensions—those of a tennis court. It turns out that the elder Agassi was determined that one (if not all) of his children was going to be a tennis champion. As the girls broke down one by one, and brother Philly couldn't make the grade, it was up to Andre, the youngest, to become the No. 1 tennis player in the world.
When his father couldn't torture him any longer—tennis before school and after—he was sent off to Nick Bollettieri's Tennis Academy in Florida. Bollettieri's school, which is legendary now for the number of champions it has fostered, was new then not the dream school people imagine. Crummy food, drill-sergeant tactics, no sleep, no bonding with other students; it sounded like a hellhole. And Agassi was horrified when Bollettieri picked him out as a favored student who could stay for free. Essentially with no schooling past the 9th grade, Agassi was Nick's ward and shepherded across the U.S. winning junior championships and becoming more lonely as time went on.
Article comments
1 - Flo
Nice comment. I really liked this book. I think it was very interesting in many ways, the way he talks about life and the lessons you have to/need to learn along the way.
What made me tick in this story is how much Agassi is impressionable. He is impressionable nearly as much as he is impressive. That's fascinating. Very smart and honest guy it seems anyway.
Ps: It's BORIS Becker not Bernard :-)
2 - Lynn Voedisch
What's amazing about the book is that he "wrote" it by speaking into a tape recorder and then just tossing the tapes into a basket. A helpful editor worked with him on putting it all into a workable, flowing format. So what you are getting are extremely candid observations, not screened by a ghost writer or co-writer. I think that's what gives this book its immediacy.
3 - Flo
Yeah, that's very interesting that "tossing tapes" thing. It really makes the work quite unique indeed. I think that's also why it is written in present tense, meaning that we have his thoughts and reactions of that time and not his reflections and memories of it from now. Like any biography it is highly subjective but the tone is very particular as the result of the way he did it.
4 - Lynn Voedisch
I really like books in present tense. Puts you in the Now, if you know what I mean.