Andre Agassi reveals his drugs shame

The Times Online
October 28, 2009

Neil Harman, Tennis Correspondent

Andre Agassi makes the sensational confession today that he lied to the
tennis authorities to escape a ban for taking hard drugs.

The American, one of the finest players to grace the game, tested positive
for the highly addictive drug, crystal methamphetamine, and then duped the
Association of Tennis Professionals into believing he had taken it by
accident.

The admissions come in a soul-searching autobiography that is being
serialised exclusively today and tomorrow in The Times.

The 1992 Wimbledon champion, the winner of eight grand-slam titles, also
says that he has always secretly hated playing tennis and lived in fear of
his bad-tempered and violent father.

Agassi, now 39, relates how he took crystal meth – possession of which
carries a maximum five-year jail sentence in the US – in 1997, when his form
was falling and he was having doubts about his impending marriage to the
actress, Brooke Shields.

Had the positive drugs test become public, the repercussions for Agassi
could have been catastrophic. It remains to be seen whether repercussions
will follow his confession.

In his book, Agassi recounts sitting at home with his assistant, referred to
only as Slim, and being introduced to the drug. `Slim is stressed too … He
says, You want to get high with me? On what? Gack. What the hell’s gack?
Crystal meth. Why do they call it gack? Because that’s the sound you make
when you’re high … Make you feel like Superman, dude.

`As if they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth, I hear these words: You
know what? F*** it. Yeah. Let’s get high.

`Slim dumps a small pile of powder on the coffee table. He cuts it, snorts
it. He cuts it again. I snort some. I ease back on the couch and consider
the Rubicon I’ve just crossed.

`There is a moment of regret, followed by vast sadness. Then comes a tidal
wave of euphoria that sweeps away every negative thought in my head. I’ve
never felt so alive, so hopeful – and I’ve never felt such energy.

`I’m seized by 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.’

In the autumn of a year in which he pulled out of the French Open and did
not bother to practise for Wimbledon, Agassi is walking through New York’s
LaGuardia airport when he gets a phone call from a doctor working with the
ATP.

`There is doom in his voice, as if he’s going to tell me I’m dying,’ Agassi
writes. `And that’s exactly what he tells me.’

Agassi learns that he has failed a drugs test. `He reminds me that tennis
has three classes of drug violation,’ Agassi writes. `Performance-enhancing
drugs … would constitute a Class 1, he says, which would carry a
suspension of two years. However, he adds, crystal meth would seem to be a
clear case of Class 2. Recreational drugs.’ That would mean a three-month
suspension.

`My name, my career, everything is now on the line. Whatever I’ve achieved,
whatever I’ve worked for, might soon mean nothing. Days later I sit in a
hard-backed chair, a legal pad in my lap, and write a letter to the ATP.
It’s filled with lies interwoven with bits of truth.

`I say Slim, whom I’ve since fired, is a known drug user, and that he often
spikes his sodas with meth – which is true. Then I come to the central lie
of the letter. I say that recently I 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 feel ashamed, of course. I promise myself that this lie is the end of
it.’ The ATP reviewed the case – and threw it out.