A Revealing Look Inside A True Champion

When it comes to books, I'm partial to real-life memoirs. I've always found that truth is more fascinating than any fiction that any author could conjure up.
This summer I made my way through quite a few biographies and autobiographies. But none was more engrossing than Andre Agassi's autobiography entitled Open.
The title really says it all: This is the open, revealing story of Agassi from his boyhood to the present.
Now, it needs to be said that I've always been an Agassi fan. So, I was partial to the guy before I even opened his book. I like Agassi's passion. And I came to greatly admire the excitement, the spontaneity and the dexterity that he brought to the game of tennis.
And here's what's intriguing about all this: From an early age, Agassi was trained to be a tennis automaton. He was trained to be a hard-charging, high-velocity player and an ace-server. But he turned out to be an unpredictable baseline player: a scrappy, relentless competitor who was often at his best when his back was against the wall. You could never count him out.
At times it seemed like he made up the game (and devised his strategies) as he went along.
Andre Agassi made tennis exciting. He gave the game heat.
Yet, Agassi never even liked the game. In fact, he says he hated it. He was forced into tennis by his father, who drilled him and pushed him and bullied him day after day after day from a very early age.
Agassi's story is the story of the only man in tennis history to have achieved a career grand slam: winning the US Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, the Australian Open and the Olympic Gold Medal. It's a stunning feat -- and an incredible story.
But this isn't simply a sports diary.
This is a book about Agassi himself -- his struggles, his demons, his life, his loves and his missteps.
You will be surprised when you read this book because Agassi is as hard on himself as he is on anyone else. He has examined his own faults carefully and he lays bare all of his frustrations and insecurities.
Having said that, I think you will also find Agassi's journey uplifting.
This is a story of a man who has come of age and who has found new reasons -- new causes and purposes -- to motivate him and to once again move him to embrace a game that he came to hate.