AGASSI DESCRIBES HATE FOR TENNIS, ADMITS HE WAS LIVING A LIE

Las Vegas Sun
Nov 9 2009
NV

Andre Agassi speaks after a loss at the 1997 U.S. Open in New York.

His autobiography contains an admission that he used crystal meth
that year.

To fans. To opponents. To tennis authorities. To first wife Brooke
Shields. To friends, including Barbra Streisand. To the media. And,
he says, to himself.

"I can’t live with that anymore," Agassi said in a telephone interview
with The Associated Press.

"These lies — some of them came, certainly, out of fear. A lot of
them came out of real confusion. A lot of it was thinking out loud. A
lot of it was just getting stuff wrong. And a lot of it started with
lies to myself," Agassi said. "When I retired from tennis, I had the
opportunity, the time, the energy, to turn a real hard lens on myself."

His book "Open," in stores Monday, allows Agassi to unburden himself
of secrets he’s carried for years. Secrets about using crystal meth,
about evading punishment for a failed drug test, about wearing a
hairpiece, about what he calls a long-standing hatred of tennis.

Agassi described the memoir, a compelling read crafted by Pulitzer
Prize winner J.R. Moehringer from tape recordings of the eight-time
Grand Slam champion’s taped recollections, as part of his "atonement
for where I’ve been in my life."

As he retraces that life in present tense — and without quotation
marks, because "this is reconstructed dialogue," as he put it —
Agassi sets out to explain himself and describe his journey from
ninth-grade dropout to founder of a prep school in Las Vegas. He
writes about his courtship of tennis star Steffi Graf, now his wife
and the mother of their two children.

Along the way, he offers critical words for rivals such as Pete
Sampras, Michael Chang and Boris Becker; discusses "tanking" matches;
and poignantly describes his childhood fear of his father ("shrill
and stern and filled with rage"), who Agassi told the AP refused to
read the book.

Agassi recounts how, when he was a kid, his father would give him
Excedrin before matches because it contained caffeine. Once, Agassi
writes, his father gave him what Agassi believes to be speed. He also
writes at various points about using marijuana and alcohol. Speaking
to the AP, Agassi called crystal meth "a performance inhibitor" and
said, "Everything I earned on the tennis court, I actually had to
probably earn more than I needed to, because of many of the things
I did to myself."

Agassi further talked about his drug use during a "60 Minutes" on
CBS News interview with Katie Couric that aired Sunday night. The
segment opened with footage of Agassi and wife Steffi Graf playing
tennis at Darling Tennis Center, a public facility near their home
in Northwest Las Vegas.

Agassi said during the television interview that he couldn’t recall
how many times he used meth, but said it was for the better part of
1997. "It was way more than it should have been."

The segment, the first of a two part series, is mostly about his
dislike with tennis from an early age and how he wanted to quit.

Agassi said he father drove him hard because he believed tennis was
the quickest road to the American dream for the Armenian-American.

"It was really scaring, especially for a 7-year-old," he said. "It
was an unnecessary burden for a child, but one I carried."

Agassi said his drug use came at a point in his life where he didn’t
think too highly of himself. In addition to his unhappiness in tennis,
he wasn’t satisfied with his relationship with actress Brooke Shields.

The couple eventually divorced after less than two years of marriage.

"I was living in fraud. I was just living in hell," Agassi said.

Asked by the AP whether he ever took performance-enhancing substances
as a professional, Agassi — who retired in 2006 — replied, with a
light chuckle, "No. No. The answer is ‘No.’"

He is not surprised by the negative reactions to some of the book’s
revelations. Martina Navratilova, for example, likened Agassi to
baseball’s Roger Clemens; Roger Federer referred to material in the
book as "a bit of a pity."

Agassi understands such responses, he told the AP, because, "You’ve
got to remember: I spent many years angry and disappointed at myself."

He said he simply felt compelled to confess to using crystal meth
"a lot" in 1997, failing a doping test that year, lying to the
men’s tennis tour about how the drug entered his system and avoiding
punishment.

"How can you tell people to not hide from truth when you hide from
it?" Agassi said in the interview. "While I know this story cuts
against the grain of one’s perceptions of me, it is the true me. And
I believe in that authenticity."

He added: "I have no regrets about what’s in there."

There are plenty of fascinating passages, aside from the excerpts
sold to magazines and newspapers as part of the publicity push to
help sell books. Agassi used the word "sensationalized" repeatedly
during the 20-minute interview to describe those excerpts.

He hopes people will read the entire book so they can appreciate what
he called its "power."

"It’s about me learning how to commit fully, despite the fear of
failure," he said. "It’s a person waking up in a life that they didn’t
choose, in a life that they maybe don’t want, and not being sure how
to take ownership of their own life, and figuring that out."

The book also is about tennis:

â~@¢ On Sampras: Agassi says Sampras "sounds more robotic than"
a parrot.

At his depths, Agassi thinks: "I envy Pete’s dullness. I wish I could
emulate his spectacular lack of inspiration, and his peculiar lack
of need for inspiration." Agassi tells of betting coach Brad Gilbert
about how much Sampras tipped a parking valet; they ask the valet,
who says $1; Agassi’s conclusion: "We could not be more different,
Pete and I."

â~@¢ On Chang: "He thanks God — credits God — for the win, which
offends me. That God should take sides in a tennis match, that God
should side against me, that God should be in Chang’s box, feels
ludicrous and insulting. I beat Chang and savor every blasphemous
stroke." When Chang wins the 1989 French Open, Agassi thinks, "I feel
sickened. How could Chang, of all people, have won a slam before me?"

â~@¢ On other opponents: Agassi writes about holding grudges against
Becker (who Agassi says blew kisses at Shields during a match), Jim
Courier, Thomas Muster, Yevgeni Kafelnikov, Jeff Tarango (who Agassi
says cheated during a match between them when Agassi was 8).

â~@¢ On "tanking:" Agassi says he lost on purpose against Chang in
the Australian Open semifinals one year so he wouldn’t have to face
Becker in the final, writing: "It’s almost harder than winning. You
have to lose in such a way that the crowd can’t tell." He also says
of sports writers: "They never get it right. When I tank, they say
I’m not good enough; when I’m not good enough, they say I tank."

â~@¢ On his fake hair: Of the 1990 French Open final, Agassi writes,
"Warming up before the match, I pray. Not for a win, but for my
hairpiece to stay on."

â~@¢ On the 1999 French Open final, which he won to complete a career
Grand Slam: "I’ve already obsessed about this tournament for the last
10 years. I can’t bear the idea of obsessing about it for another
eighty. … If I don’t win this thing right now, I’ll never be happy,
truly happy, again."

Las Vegas Sun reporter Ray Brewer contributed to this report.