Open

I just finished reading Andre Agassi's autobiography Open. I had found Barnes & Noble gift cards in an old suitcase and used those to purchase this book. I rarely buy books, preferring to use the library, but this time I'm glad that I made this decision. It is a book that I want for my library.

While I hated playing tennis and taking tennis lessons, I loved watching the sport. I had my favorites; Chrissy Evert, John McEnroe, and Martina Navratilova. When Agassi arrived on the tennis scene, I felt a connection. He was portrayed as the bad boy of tennis, but I saw something else.

I remember telling my mother that I felt he was misunderstood. There was something about him that spoke to me. While most of the nation was cheering on Pete Sampras, I found him standoffish and annoying. Pete did everything effortlessly while Agassi fought hard as if he needed more than a tennis victory.

Reading Open, I discovered all of that was true. The book begins and ends with Agassi's tennis exit. In between, we learn about his life and what tennis meant to him. For many, it may shock that he hated tennis. For me, it made perfect sense. It is so well written that I only read a few pages each night so that I could soak in everything slowly.

His childhood was far from idealistic, and he pulls you in by starting with the worst of his father and then showing you his father's own horrid childhood. He spends his childhood years stuck on a tennis court playing a sport he despises with a man he hates even more.

His family's livelihood depends on Agassi's tennis career, and the weight of this on a young man's shoulders is almost too hard to bear. Meeting and marrying Steffi Graf (Stefanie to Andre), who endured her own tennis father, probably saved Agassi from a downward spiral.

Surrounding himself with people who loved him as he wished his own father had, shows wisdom from this ninth-grade dropout. By the time Agassi starts turning his life and career around, the reader will be cheering for him with fists pumping high in the air.

The book is an honest, self-revealing book for the sports world. I read John McEnroe's autobiography first, and it doesn't even come close to Agassi's Open. Even non-tennis buffs will enjoy it. Who doesn't love a story of a lost child learning from his mistakes to become one of the greatest, not only in tennis but in life?