Book Review: “OPEN”- Andre Agassi lets himself loose

If there has been a rockstar in tennis, then it was the one and only Andre Agassi, who wooed youth with his unconventional air and irked critics with his nonconformist approach towards tennis and life. We read what the media dishes out and form an image, which is an inaccurate way of judging public faces, for in the background lies a truth unknown, responsible for maneuvering actions both popular and unpopular. Agassi’s autobiography “OPEN” is literally an open elucidation of the dramatic events of his life that shaped him and separated him from the herd.

Under the tutelage of his sport fanatic father, Andre developed his tennis skills, but never fell in love with the game as he was made to practice relentlessly under the “hard task master” who saw a champion in his son and aspired for him to become the number one seed. ”Open” elaborates upon Agassi’s cold relationship with his father, whose real warmth spurted with moistening of eyes and a choked throat when Andre informed him of his first Wimbeldon win, for it was a proud moment for a dad who spent all his life in making a champion out of his son.

“Hit harder, my father yells. Hit harder. Now backhands. Backhands. My arm feels it`s going to fall off. I want to ask, How much longer. Pops? But I don’t ask. I do as I`m told.”

The description of the days Andre had spent at Bollettieri’s Tennis Academy is amusing and makes the reader chuckle at his eccentrically quirky ways of deliberate subversion of rules and regulation to rid himself of the academy.

“Finally, when my grades hit bottom, my rebellion reaches the breaking point. I walk into a hair salon & tell the stylist to give me a mohawak. Razor the sides, shave them to the scalp, & leave just one thick strip of spiked hair down the middle….Then dye it pink.”

“I decided to play the match in jeans….not tennis shorts, not warm-up pants, but torn faded, dirty dungarees….For god measure I pencil on some eyeliner & put in my gaudiest earrings.”

Fascinating and cozy “clandestine talks” along with sharing of dreams and inhibitions with elder brother, Philip, and childhood friend Perry add youthful vitality to the book’s narrative.

“He talks about being called a born-looser….Andre, he says, I`m going bald….But he won`t lose his hair without a battle….He thinks the reason he`s going bald is that he`s not getting enough blood to his scalp, so every night, at some point during our bedtime talks, Philly stands upside down.… I plead to God that my brother, the born looser, won`t lose this one thing.”

“Perry confides in me about his nose & mouth…..He says it`s made him deeply self-conscious and painfully shy with girls.”

“We talk about the men we`re going to be once we`re rid of our fathers. We promise each other that we`ll be different, not just from our fathers but from all the men we know, even the ones we see in movies. We make a pact that we`ll never do drugs or drink alcohol”

Andre Agassi’s love life was an extremely colourful one. But his indulgence into love brought him much grief, for he was an emotional guy who found it hard to cope with the break-up blues. His relationship with Brooke Shields reveals that he was a simple man with ordinary cravings disguised as a tennis “sensation”.

He had a confidant and bodyguard in Gill, his gym trainer, in whom he found the affection of a doting father, and in Steffi Graf, he found his soul mate. The intense rivalry he shared with Boris Becker, whom he called “BB Socrates”, and Pete Sampras, whom he thought was a creature that was “robotic”, and his ignorance in getting caught in the drug scandal are things about which Agassi has talked about vividly in his book. He brings alive the games he played in and makes it sound like listening to the live commentary of a pulsating duel, which can keep even a non-tennis person gripped from start to the end. Use of colloquial language and slangs makes the book easier to read and the life of Andre more relatable to the common man.

From a submissive kid, a rebel in his adolescence to a vagabond in his youth, stability came to Agassi’s life when Steffi Graf became a part it. “Open” records all these stages in a manner that can captivate even those averse to books.

“But I can’t…something in my gut, some deep unseen muscle, won’t let me. I hate tennis, hate it with all my heart, and still I keep playing, keep hitting all morning, and all afternoon…I keep begging myself to stop, and I keep playing, and this gap, this contradiction between what I want to do and what I do, feels like the core of my life.”

“Open” begins with the aforementioned lines, which get reiterated quite frequently in the book. And it is only in the last chapter or to put it in context, at the time of planning his retirement, the psychology behind Agassi’s hatred for tennis finds a parallel.

“Also, no matter how I feel about tennis, the game is my home. I hated home as a boy, and then I left, and I soon found myself homesick”.

Anyone who reads the book will get the answer as to why Andre drew a parallel between home and tennis. “Open”, an account of a man who first went on to live his father’s dream and later the dreams of several underserved youth of the US, is a must buy Sunday Times bestseller.