Editors Reads Verdict
Agassi's memoir is the best sports autobiography ever written. Its shocking central revelation — that he hated tennis — gives it a psychological depth that transforms a sports narrative into a profound study of identity, compulsion, and redemption.
What We Loved
- The central paradox — hating the sport you're the best in the world at — is genuinely extraordinary
- J.R. Moehringer's co-writing produces some of the most visceral sports prose ever published
- The father relationship sections are among the most powerful in any sports memoir
- The Brooke Shields and Steffi Graf relationships are handled with unusual candour
Minor Drawbacks
- Some readers find the meth admission more remarkable than the book acknowledges it to be
- The charitable work sections are less compelling than the tennis sections
Key Takeaways
- → External achievement and internal fulfilment are separable — you can be the best in the world and miserable
- → Compulsion can drive excellence even in the absence of genuine love for the work
- → Identity imposed in childhood can be dismantled and rebuilt in adulthood
- → The pressure of parental expectation can simultaneously create and destroy
- → Service to others can provide meaning when personal achievement cannot
| Author | Andre Agassi |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Vintage |
| Pages | 400 |
| Published | November 9, 2009 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Memoir, Biography, Sports |
| Difficulty | Beginner |
| Best For | Sports fans, memoir readers, and anyone interested in the psychology of achievement, identity, and the gap between external success and internal fulfilment. |
The Best Sports Memoir Ever Written
Andre Agassi opens his memoir with a sentence that changes how you read everything that follows: “I play tennis for a living even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion and always have.” This declaration — made by a man who won eight Grand Slam titles and is widely considered one of the greatest players in the history of the sport — is one of the most extraordinary opening gambits in memoir literature.
Open was written with J.R. Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who would later write Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog. Their collaboration produced the finest sports autobiography ever written — not because of the tennis, but because of what the tennis reveals about identity, compulsion, and the costs of excellence.
The Father Who Made a Monster
Mike Agassi emigrated from Iran and became obsessed with creating a tennis champion from the children he and his wife would have. Before Andre was born, Mike had a tennis ball hanging in the crib where the child would sleep. By the time Andre could stand, he was hitting balls against a ball machine for hours a day. By the time he was thirteen, he was sent to a tennis academy in Florida where abuse was standard.
Agassi’s account of his childhood is one of the most devastating portraits of a parent’s ambition consuming a child’s identity. His father loved him — that much is clear. His father also turned tennis into something Agassi had no choice about, which made it impossible to love.
The Revelation
The book’s most discussed passage is Agassi’s account of a period in the late 1990s when he was using crystal meth, failed a drug test, and was saved from suspension by a letter to the ATP that Moehringer renders with agonising specificity. This passage is remarkable not just as a confession but as a demonstration of how thoroughly lost Agassi had become in the gap between his public image and his private life.
Steffi Graf and Redemption
The book’s final movement concerns Agassi’s relationship with Steffi Graf — not as a fairy tale ending but as a genuine account of two people finding each other at the right time — and his creation of the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, which provides education to at-risk children. The charity work gives Agassi something tennis never could: a sense that his effort is for something beyond himself.
Final Verdict
Open is one of the most honest books ever written about the relationship between external achievement and internal fulfilment. Essential reading for anyone interested in sports, identity, or what it actually costs to be the best.
Our rating: 4.6/5 — The gold standard of sports memoir. Even if you don’t follow tennis, this is essential reading about identity and achievement.
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