The bullet-point highlights of “Open” have been given the tabloid treatment in advance of the book’s arrival. The biggest extracurricular events in Agassi’s life have been prompted by episodes of “60 Minutes” (one of which inspired him to open a charter school for at-risk children) and by friends’ predictions about which women he would meet, court and marry. As described in “Open,” it is lively but narrow, since Agassi’s curiosity does not extend far beyond tennis, more tennis, the misery of tennis, the way sportswriters misunderstand tennis and the irritating celebrity that tennis stardom confers. (He said that he offered to put Moehringer’s name on the book, and that Moehringer declined.) As for Agassi, he uses his writing partner in the same way he uses his tennis support staff: as talented individuals in a universe where he, Agassi, is the one and only sun. The ease with which Moehringer slips into telling someone else’s story is both consummate and spooky. Inevitably one wonders which of them actually wrote “it’s the main reason for my pigeon-toed walk” about Agassi’s troublesome bottom vertebra. The same gift of gab that colored Moehringer’s tales of being a boy in a barroom now magically finds its way onto the tennis court and into Agassi’s much-analyzed, follicularly challenged head. Moehringer, who wrote “The Tender Bar,” a shapely and expert memoir of his own. But the writing of this autobiography was a team sport. I don’t believe people are destined to win tennis tournaments.Andre Agassi often says in “Open” that tennis is a lonely game.
Now that I’ve won the French Open, I do feel slightly more-I don’t know. Have you forgotten?Īfter the two weeks you’ve just had, you’re going to tell me anything is impossible? And you’ll have your first kids together in 2002.īrad, she has a boyfriend. and scribbles on the upper right-hand corner: 2001-Steffi Agassi. He takes the Concorde promotional literature from the seat pocket. It’s destiny that you two should be married. Only two people in the history of the world have won all four slams and a gold medal-you and Steffi Graf. And who should happen to have won it on the women’s side? Who? Tell me. You won the 1999 French Open on the men’s side, he says. To quickly assess the difficulty of the text, read a short excerpt:
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