Open largely reads like an account of a prolonged adolescence-complete with a Hummer and a much-discussed bout of crystal-meth use-with a grown-up Agassi finally emerging at the end. Normal adults take out the trash Andre Agassi married Brooke Shields. Though he laments his lack of a normal childhood, he also gets to avoid the everyday inconveniences of adulthood. He is surrounded by a retinue of handlers who cater to his whims, including indulging his constant hemming and hawing about quitting the sport. Turning pro at sixteen, Agassi goes on to fame, wealth, cool friends, fast cars, and a sense of approval. Open does evoke some of the excitement that must have kept Agassi going, though his motivations aren’t always noble. Still, Agassi tells us he hates tennis so often, it is hard not to say, “Well, just quit, then.” Later, in his early teens, the future pro is shipped off to the rigorous tennis puppy mill run by Nick Bollieteri in Bradenton, Florida. His maniac of a father-Mike Agassi, a former boxer from Iran who brandishes a gun in road-rage moments-subjects the young Agassi to an inhuman twenty-five hundred balls a day, fired from a customized cannon. His animosity for the sport comes as no surprise given his early immersion in it. That is the takeaway from his new autobiography, Open, where he states on page one and throughout the book how much he loathes the game. If there’s one thing Andre Agassi wants you to know about the game of tennis, it’s that he hates it.
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