Open – By Andre Agassi
The autobiography of tennis legend and genius Andre Agassi, the only man in history to have won every slam (Australian, French, Wimbledon and US Open) plus the Olympic Gold medal plus year end number 1. A well written, highly interesting and entertaining read about the great man. A general and somewhat contraversial theme of the book is how he actually hates tennis, BUT cannot stay away from it, he always goes back for one last shot. My fave bit is probably the description of and continual references to The Dragon, the ball machine his fanatical dad made for the tennis court he built in their back garden to fire balls at 100mph at a 7 year old Andre, every day after school, ordering him to Hit Out In Front until the entire court was full of balls – this kinda explains Agassi's staggering hand-eye co-ordination (probably the best ever). That followed by the story of how his first match loss was to a cheating Jeff Tarrango as an 8 year old and how he never really forgot that, hehe. Agassi also mentions how he realised he was different from arch-rival Pete Sampras and goes on about some issues he has with the guy, which is a shame cos sadly he brought this to the court at Indian Wells at the Hit For Haiti exhibition. You woulda thought he would've gotten over this by publishing it for the world, but there you go. His wooing and eventual marriage to Steffi Graf is also described in detail and there are many other pleasant reading moments, his car .
I'd rate this as the best tennis autobiography there is, it's not my favourite, but it is the best.
