OPEN

Andre Agassi’s book, Open: An Autobiography, is everything it promised to be.

It is a roller-coaster ride of emotions from reading about an unhappy childhood, borne from the pressure of fulfilling a parent’s dream, to glimpses of greatness and backstories from a seemingly glittering world most tennis fans know only from afar (that is, from what we see on the TV screens).

It is maybe jarring to know that one of the greats of the game hated the very sport that made him a legend. Or that he made several wrong decisions, personal and professional, while operating under the mantra “Image Is Everything,” something that was not his idea but became the very essence of how people looked at him for a long time. 

The title of the book is Open, and in it, Andre Agassi poured his heart, in the writing voice of his friend, J.R. Moehringer, a Pulitzer-prize winning author. They say it is unlike any sports biography out there. I cannot say, because this is the only one I’ve read. It has its share of critics, but many more are those who embraced the lessons from a life of someone who made some wrong choices but many right ones, and is now a legitimate role model and admirable humanitarian.  

It’s not all drama, though. Some of the best parts about the book, and honestly my favorite, are the telling of the courtship between him and his wife, the great Steffi Graf. Those are some of the most romantic  true stories I’ve  ever read in a long time. It even has itsshare of the funnies, too, and a dash of locker-room gossip. Besides his mullet during the 90s, another secret Agassi revealed is that he stopped wearing underwear since his win at the 1999 French Open. He said, “something works, you don’t change it.” I wonder if he ever had a need for a hemorrhoid cream, though.