by Andre Agassi with J.R. Moehringer, 2009
Born in 1970, played professional tennis 20 years, 1986-2006. His father was a monster: violent, mean, used to drill him constantly with the Dragon – a souped-up ball machine, when he was 7. Sent him to Florida to Nick Bollettiere Academy in Florida when he was 11 or 12. He hates it there. It’s like a prison. He rebels big time. But they won’t let him quit because he’s the best. They let him quit school in 9th grade. He turns pro at age 16 (1986). He meets Gil Reyes, a trainer at UNLV, and asks him to become his personal trainer. Gil is his savior – he is his best friend, his father figure, and a very good trainer. From 1990-1991 he plays slams and loses them all – to Chang, Pete, Courier, Courier. 1990 French Open Final against Gomez – hair disaster. His first slam win is Wimbledon in 1992 against Ivanisevic. His first slam win against Sampras was Australian Open 1995. “Pete, always Pete.” This is when he went bald – his hair in late 80’s early 90’s was a WIG!
His favorite movie was Shadowlands. He adored Steffi Graff from day one and was so bummed when they both won Wimbledon in 1992 and they eliminated the winner’s dance. He marries Brooke Shields April 1997 after dating for 2 years. Very unhappy – never together – two completely different people – Actor/Tennis Player. He starts using crystal meth while dating her and hits rock bottom tennis-wise. His coach, Brad Gilbert, tells him it’s time to change or quit. He decides to change.
But before he can change, he gets a call from the ATP doctor that he failed the drug test. “The urine sample you submitted has been found to contain trace amounts of crystal methylene.” Since it’s a recreational drug rather than performance-enhancing, it’s a Class 2, meaning 3 months suspension. He’s supposed to write a letter of guilt to the ATP – he helps Gil’s daughter, Kacey, beforehand, because she’s in an L.A. hospital in agony. Her room is so hot. Andre goes and buys the biggest air conditioner and he and Gil install it. Then, Andre goes and buys a little inner tube, puts it under her head, and blows it up so her head is in the center. “A look of pure relief, and gratitude, and joy washes over her face, and in this look, in this courageous little girl, I find the thing I’ve been seeking, the philosopher’s stone that unites all the experiences, good and bad, of the last few years. Her suffering, her resilient smile in the face of that suffering, my part in easing her suffering – this, this is the reason for everything. How many times must I be shown? This is why we’re here. To fight through the pain and, when possible, to relieve the pain of others. So simple, so hard to see.”
He writes a letter to the ATP saying Slim, whom he’s since fired, is a known drug user and often spikes his sodas with meth. He says he recently drank from one of Slim’s spiked sodas. The ATP accepts it and absolves him.
He starts over – from the bottom, new training program with Gil. Playing in the “Challengers.”
In 1997, he seems a 60 minutes show about charter schools and resolves, through his newly opened charitable foundation, to build a charter school for at-risk kids in Las Vegas.
Then he gets the opportunity to go to South Africa and meet Nelson Mandela, one of his heroes.
“Bidding Mandela goodbye, I’m magnetized, I’m pointed in the right direction…I love and revere those who suffer, who have ever suffered. I am now more nearly a grown up member of the human race. God wants us to grow up.”
He and Brooke divorce in 1999. He wins the French Open in 1999 against Medvedev. He, with Brad his coach, decide the woman he is meant to be with is Steffi Graf. He woos her away from a long time boyfriend and she gets pregnant and they get married, no hoopla, match made in heaven. They name their son, Jaden Gil. They have a daughter, Jaz Elle, born Oct 3, 2003.
Stefanie is voted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. He gives the introduction speech. “I compare her to the artisans and craftsmen who built the great medieval cathedrals…They were perfectionists about every crevice and invisible corner – and that’s Stefanie. And yet also she’s a cathedral, a monument to perfection. I spend five minutes extolling her work ethic, her dignity, her legacy, her strength, her grace. In closing, I utter the truest thing I’ve ever said about her. Ladies and gentleman, I introduce you to the greatest person I have ever known.”
He meets Federer at the 2004 US Open in the quarters. Federer is the number one seed…”He’s growing before my eyes into one of the game’s all-time greats…I can’t help but stand back and admire his immense skills, his magnificent composure. He’s the most regal player I’ve ever witnessed.”
He meets Federer again in the finals of the US Open 2005. “Federer comes onto the court looking like Cary Grant. I almost wonder if he’s going to play in an ascot and a smoking jacket. He’s permanently smooth, I’m constantly rattled…In the tiebreak, he goes to a place that I don’t recognize. He finds a gear that other players simply don’t have. He wins 7-1…I’m reminded how slight the margin can be on a tennis court, how narrow the space between greatness and mediocrity, fame, and anonymity, happiness and despair. We were playing a tight match. We were dead even. Now, due to a tiebreak that made my jaw drop with admiration, the rout is on.”
“Walking to the net, I’m certain that I’ve lost to the better man, the Everest of the next generation. I pity the young players who will have to contend with him. I feel for the man who is fated to play Agassi to his Sampras. Though I don’t mention Pete by name, I have him uppermost in my mind when I tell reporters: “It’s real simple. Most people have weaknesses. Federer has none.””
Agassi is 35 years old at that time (2005).
Agassi Prep School: 26,000 square feet, 500 students, waiting list of 800, $40 million dollar campus. In a run-down part of Las Vegas. “And yet in 8 years not one window has been broken, not one wall has been sprayed with graffiti.” … “My small contribution to the aesthetics of the school: in the common area of the high school building I wanted a gleaming black Steinway. When I delivered the piano, all the students gathered around and I shocked them by playing Lean on Me. What delighted me most was that the students didn’t know who I was. And when their teachers told them, they weren’t all that impressed.”
“…Agassi Prep has a longer day and a longer year than other schools…” “We thought it important that students wear uniforms…in official school colors – burgundy and navy…Every time I walk into the school I’m struck by the irony: I’m now the enforcer of a uniform policy.” (He hated Wimbledon’s dress code of all white.) “In the upper grades, the focus is squarely on college.” “My theme, I think, will be contradictions…Walt Whitman, ‘Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself.'”
“What other message could I hope to deliver? What other message could they expect from a ninth-grade dropout whose proudest accomplishment is his school?”
Last few paragraphs of the book, he and Stefanie are playing tennis together: Autumn 2007.
Andre is a Christian. Early on, PHilly, his big brother, takes him to a non-denominational church in Vegas. J.P. is the pastor. He becomes one of Andre’s very best friends (John Parenti). “I consider myself a Christian, but J.P.’s church is the first one where I’ve felt truly close to God.”
Andre’s father was an Armenian born in Iran and after WWII, the American and British GI’s made him their unofficial ball boy and tennis court custodian and gave him a racket. He loved tennis – decided before Andre was born that he’d be a professional tennis player. One year old – watching ping pong moving only eyes not head – ‘See – A Natural.’
Still in crib, he (father) hung a mobile with tennis balls and encouraged Andre to slap them with a ping pong paddle he taped to his hand. At 3, dad gave him a sawed off rocket and told him to hit whatever he wanted. His favorite was salt shakers through glass windows. His father never got made about hitting something hard with a racket.
In 1988, he plays Michael Chang in the Tournament of Champions. “Once more I square off against Chang, who’s developed a bad habit since last we met. Every time he beats someone, he points to the sky. He thanks God – credits God – for the win, which offends me. That God should take sides in a tennis match, that God should side against me, that God should be in Chang’s box, feels ludicrous and insulting. I beat Chang and savor every blasphemous stroke.”
In 1988 he wore Nike denim shorts. The Nike reps were showing them to McEnroe in Portland in 1987, at the Nike International Challenge. He (McEnroe) “held up a pair of denim shorts and said, ‘What the fuck are these? My eyes got big. I licked my lips and thought, Whoa. Those are cool.. If you don’t want those, Mac, I’ve got dibs. The moment Mac set them aside, I scooped them up. Now I wear them at all my matches, as do countless fans. Sportswriters murder me for it.”
Sportswriters, “They call me a rebel, but I have no interest in being a rebel. I’m only conducting an everyday, run-of-the-mill teenage rebellion…To make matters worse, journalists write down exactly what I say, while I’m saying it, word for word, as if this represented the literal truth. I want to tell them, Hold it, don’t write that down, I’m only thinking out loud here. You’re asking about the subject I understand least – Me. Let me edit myself, contradict myself. But there isn’t time.”
His hair is also falling out at age 18. So his brother Philly gets him a hair piece. “I ask myself: you’re going to wear a hairpiece? During tournaments? I answer: What choice do I have.”
Most painful loss – 1995 US Open against Sampras. He beat Becker to get to the final against Pete. He loses to Pete (torn rib cartilage – tore it while playing Becker).
“I’ve always had trouble shaking off hard losses, but this loss to Pete is different. This is the ultimate loss, the uber-loss, the alpha-omega loss that eclipses all others. Previous losses to Pete, the loss to Courier, the loss to Gomez – they were flesh wounds compared to this, which feels like a spear through the heart. Every day this loss feels new. Every day I tell myself to stop thinking about it, and everyday I can’t. The only respite is fantasizing about retirement.”
Brooke takes him to her favorite restaurant in New York, Campagnola. The manager, Frankie, becomes their friend. Andre finds out how stresses he is over college costs for his kids.
“Days later I talk to Perry and ask him to put aside a nest egg of Nike stock in Frankie’s name…Helping Frankie provides more satisfaction and makes me feel more connected and alive and myself than anything else that happens in 1996. I tell myself: Remember this. Hold onto this. This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others. This is the only thing we can do that has any lasting value or meaning. This is why we’re here. To make each other feel safe.”
In 1997, Slim introduces him to crystal-meth: “I’ve never felt so alive, so hopeful – and above all, I’ve never felt such energy. I’m seized by an urge, a desperate desire to clean. I go tearing around my house, cleaning it from top to bottom. I dust the furniture. I scour the tub. I make the beds. I sweep the floors. When there’s nothing left to clean, I do laundry. All the laundry. I fold every sweater and T-shirt and still haven’t made a dent in my energy.”
Brooke is getting ready for the wedding dress – in physical shape – she puts a photo of the perfect woman on the frig. door – Steffi Graff. April 19, 1997, she and Andre get married in Monterey.
1997 Us Open he plays Rafter in the round of sixteen. “…Rafter plays well all the time. He’s six foot two, with a low center of gravity, and he can change direction like a sports car. He’s one of the hardest guys on the tour to pass, and even harder to dislike. He’s all class, win or lose, and today he wins. He’s all class, win or lose, and today he wins. He gives me a gentlemanly handshake and a smile in which there is an unmistakable trace of pity.”
When his coach, Brad Gilbert, tells him he needs to quit or change: “I hate tennis more than ever – but I hate myself more. I tell myself, so what if you hate tennis? Who cares? All those people out there, all those millions who hate what they do for a living, they do it anyway. Maybe doing what you hate, doing it well and cheerfully, is the point. So you hate tennis. Hate it all you want. You still need to respect it – and yourself. I say, OK, Brad, I’m not ready for it to be over. I’m all in. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
“Change. Time to change, Andre. You can’t go on like this. Change, change, change – I say this word to myself several times a day, every day…less as a warning than as a soothing chant. Far from depressing me, or shaming me, the idea that I must change completely, from top to bottom, brings me back to center. For once I don’t hear that nagging self-doubt that follows every personal resolution. I won’t fail this time, I can’t, because it’s change now or change never. The idea of stagnating, of remaining this Andre for the rest of my life, that’s what I find truly depressing and shameful.”
That’s when he gets the call from the ATP that he failed the urine test – trace amounts of crystal methylene. He’s 27 years old. While in the hospital with Gil and his daughter, Kacey, he writes the letter to the ATP. “It’s a letter filled with lies interwoven with bits of truth..I say that I recently drank accidentally from one of Slim’s spiked sodas, unwittingly ingesting his drugs..I ask for understanding, and leniency, and hastily sign it: Sincerely. I sit with the letter on my lap, watching Kacey’s face. I feel ashamed, of course. I’ve always been a truthful person. When I lie, it’s almost always unknowingly, or to myself…I promise myself that at least this lie is the end of it. I’ll send the letter, but I won’t do anything more.”
He never does drugs again. Gil puts him on a strict training regimen. He plays in Challengers. He launches his charter school. Annual fundraiser – Grand Slam for Children. He goes to South Africa to meet Nelson Mandela, one of his heroes. Late 1997. He brings Brooke, J.P., and J.P.’s wife, Joni. “Looking out of the hut, over the vast savannah, watching storm clouds whirl along the horizon, J.P. and I agree this is one of those moments.”
1998 is going to be his year.
In April 1998 the ATP phones him and tells him his explanation of the failed drug test has been accepted. His failed test is thrown out. He’s not suspended. The matter is closed.
Entering the 1998 US Open, he’s #8 in the world. He plays Kucera in the round of 16. He gets irritated then clowns his way back into the match, then it’s held over for darkness. Brooke wakes him in the middle of the night – after out drinking with her actor friends. He loses the next day to Kucera. “He has more verve, more stamina. He outduels me in a tough fifth set.”
Brooke isn’t there for his academy groundbreaking. She’s not there at the Australian Open but calls him the night before a match and says they have to talk when he gets home. When he gets home they go for a drive and she tells him, “I’m not happy, she says. We’re not happy. We haven’t been happy for so very long. And I don’t know if we can ever be happy again if we stay together. So, there it is. That’s that.”
He gets kicked out of a tournament in San Jose for calling the linesman a cocksucker.
Brad and Gil are happy he’s done with Brooke. Brad tells him Steffi Graf is the one he should be with. Brad sets up a practice match with Steffi in Florida. “I’ve never seen a woman so beautiful. Standing still, she’s a goddess; in motion, she’s poetry.”
He wins the 1999 French Open – a hard fought 5 setter that he almost lost.
Steffi Graf wins the 1999 French Open on the woman’s side. Brad says: “It’s destiny you end up together. Only two people in the history of the world have won all four slams and a gold medal – you and Steffi Graf. The Golden Slam. It’s destiny that you two should be married.” He predicts they will be married by 2001 and have your first kids together in 2002.
At Wimbledon, Stefanie (what she likes to be called) loses in the finals to Lindsay Davenport.
She had to pull out of mixed doubles with John McEnroe (due to a bad hamstring) and in the locker room McEnroe says, “Can you believe this bitch? She asked to play mixed doubles with me and I fucking do it and then we’re in the semis and she backs out?”
Agassi is angry – “how dare Mac say those things about Stefanie.”
He starts out solid against Pete but then Pete starts making unreturnable serves. “I stare at Pete in shock. No one, living or dead, has ever served like that..He takes me out in straight sets.”
He wins the 1999 US Open against Martin.
He finishes 1999 at #1. “I snap Pete’s streak of six year-end finishes at #1.”
He wins the 2000 Australian Open against Kafelnikov. His 6th slam. He beat Pete to get to the finals there. “Two points from losing the match I mount a furious comeback. I win the match and become the first man since Laver to reach the final in four straight slams.”
Stefanie’s father comes to Vegas and meets Andre’s father. They show him the ball machine. The fathers end up almost fighting each other – fight over boxing.
He wins the 2001 Australian Open v Clement. His 7th slam. In 2001, Stefanie gets pregnant.
US Open 2001 he faces Pete in the quarter-finals. “From the moment we come out of the tunnel, we know this will be our fiercest battle ever. We just know. It’s the 32nd time we’ve played, he leads 17-14, and each of us wears an unusually grim game face. Right here, right now, this one will decide the rivalry. Winner take all.” Pete wins after 4 hard fought tie-break sets.
He and Stefanie get married in Oct 2001 at home in Las Vegas. 3 days before their son is due.
Brad Gilbert retires from coaching Agassi in early 2002 – after 8 years of coaching him. Andre is 32.
Darren Cahill starts coaching him. He changes his racket strings.
He makes it to the 2002 US Open finals against Pete. “As always, Pete.”
He remembers a time 2 years ago in Palm Springs when they were eating at Mama Gina’s and saw Pete eating with friends. “As Pete drove away I asked Brad how much he thought Pete tipped the valet. Brad hooted. Five bucks, tops. No way, I said. The guy’s got millions. He’s earned 40 mil in prize money alone.” They asked the valet, “How much did Mr. Sampras tip you? The kid looked at his feet. He didn’t want to tell…Shoot. He gave me a dollar…We could not be more different, Pete and I, and as I fall asleep the night before perhaps our final final, I vow that the world will see our differences tomorrow.”
Pete wins.
2003 Australian Open his 8th slam victory (against Rainer Schuettler from Germany). “It’s my best performance ever.”
In 2003, US Men’s Clay Court Championships, he beats Andy Roddick. He’s #1 already – the “perfect blend of caring and not caring, the best preparation.”
2003 US Open, “Pete announces his retirement. He stops several times during his news conference to collect himself. I find myself deeply affected as well. Our rivalry has been one of the lodestars of my career. Losing to Pete has caused me enormous pain, but in the long run it’s also made me more resilient. If I’d beaten Pete more often, or if he’d come along in a different generation, I’d have a better record, and I might go down as a better player, but I’d be less.”
Jaz Elle is born 10-3-03. She doesn’t sleep. He loses to Safin in the 2004 Australian Open semifinal.
2005 Australian Open – he meets Federer in the 4th round. “I can’t win a set. He dismisses me like a teacher with a dense pupil. He, more than any of the young guns taking control of the game, makes me feel my age. When I look at him, with his suave agility, his shot-making prowess and puma-like smoothness, I remember that I’ve been around since the days of wooden rackets.”
2005 US Open – he is 35 years old – he beats Blake to make it to the semi-finals. The 5-setter against Blake, “I’ve never been more intellectually aware.” He beats Robby Ginepri to make it to the finals against Federer. “Federer comes onto the court looking like Cary Grant.” Federer beats him in a tie break. “Most people have weaknesses. Federer has none.”
2006 Wimbledon is his last Wimbledon.
His 3rd round match is against Nadal. “He’s a brute, a freak, a force of nature, as strong and balletic a player as I’ve ever seen.”
2006 US Open is his last match. He wins 2nd round against Marcos Baghdatis but loses in the 3rd round. He gives his retirement speech. In the locker room everyone comes toward him. They clap, whistle, applaud. “Only one man remains apart, refusing to applaud. I see him in the corner of my eye. He’s leaning against a far wall with a blank look on his face and his arms tightly folded. Connors. He’s now coaching Roddick. Poor Andy.”
Acknowledgements last 2 paragraphs: “That’s my Daddy’s book, Jaden said in a voice I’d never heard him use for anything but Santa Clause and guitar hero.
“I hope he and his sister feel that same pride in this book ten years from now, and 30, and 60. It was written for them, but also to them. I hope it helps them avoid some of the traps I walked right into. More, I hope it will be one of many books that give them comfort, guidance, pleasure. I was late in discovering the magic of books. Of all my many mistakes that I want my children to avoid, I put that one near the top of the list.”
“Tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself. No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players…Why? Because tennis is so damned lonely…The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court…Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement, which inevitably leads to self-talk, and for me the self-talk starts here in the afternoon shower.”
…”I obsess about my bag. I keep it meticulously organized, and I make no apologies about this anal-retentiveness…I need my 8 rackets stacked chronologically in the tennis bag, the most recently strung racket on the bottom and the least recently strung on the top because the longer a racket sits, the more tension it loses…”
“My racket stringer is old school, old world, a Czech artiste named Roman. He’s the best, and he needs to be: a string job can mean the difference in a match, and a match can mean the difference in a career, and a career can mean the difference in countless lives…He starts by removing the factory grip and putting on my grip, the custom grip I’ve had since I was 14. My grip is as personal as my thumbprint, a by-product not just of my hand shape and finger length but the size of my calluses and the force of my squeeze. Roman has a mold of my grip, which he applies to the racket. Then he wraps the mold with calfskin, which he pounds thinner and thinner until it’s the width he wants. A millimeter difference, near the end of a 4-hour match, can feel as irritating and distracting as a pebble in my shoe.”
“With the grip just so, Roman laces in the synthetic strings. He tightens them, loosens them, tightens them, tunes them as carefully as strings on a viola. Then he stencils them and vigorously waves them through the air, to let the stenciling dry.”
James, the security guard at the US Open wants to carry his bag. “No, James, no one carries my bag but me. I’ve told James that when I was 7 years old I saw Jimmy Connors make someone carry his bag, as though he were Julius Caesar. I vowed then and there that I would always carry my own.”
Foot preparation by Pere, one of the senior trainers: “First he takes a long Q-tip and applies an inky goo that makes my skin sticky, my instep purple…Now Pere sprays on skin toughener. He lets that dry, then taps a foam donut onto each callus. Next come the strips of tape, which are like rice paper. He wraps each big toe until it’s the size of a spark plug. Finally he tapes the bottoms of my feet. He knows my pressure points, where I land, where I need extra layers of padding.”
“People often ask what it’s like, this tennis life, and I can never think how to describe it. But that word comes closest. More than anything else, it’s a wrenching, thrilling, horrible, astonishing whirl…”
Andre’s father strung rackets for Jimmy Connors whenever he was in Vegas and Andre (at age 4) actually hit with Jimmy Connors. Andre would deliver the rackets to Jimmy Connors’ table – “Connors takes the rackets roughly and sets them on a chair.”
At 8 years old – he has a picture of him with Bjorn Borg – “hitting a few balls with my idol, Bjorn Borg.” Very cute picture – Bjorn and Andre both with big smiles.
He has a necklace designed and made for Gil – that represents the Father, Son, Holy Ghost. And he wears an earring that matches.
“I was born with spondylolisthesis, meaning a bottom vertebrae that parted from the other vertebrae, struck out on its own, rebelled. (It’s the main reason for his pigeon-toed walk.)”
Watch on YouTube:
1990 – French Open – hair disaster
1995 – Australian Open v. Sampras
1995 – US Open against Becker then final against Sampras
Patrick Rafter
Steffi Graf
1999 French Open
Steffi Graf Hall of Fame Induction Speech
2004 US Open quarterfinal Federer v. Agassi (Agassi beat Federer in Key Biscayne, FL April 2002)
2005 US Open final Federer v Agassi
1994 French Open Agassi v. Muster head rubbing/hair mussing incident
1994 US Open Agassi v. Stich – Agassi wins
Books to read: Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela; A Death in the Family (Pulitzer Prize Winner); The Tender Bar, JR Moehringer; Winning Ugly by Brad Gilbert.
