Open

“I play tennis for a living, even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion, and always have.”

The author articulates the central contradiction of identity and career. Although his life has been devoted to tennis, he has always disliked and resented the sport. Agassi’s repetition of the verb “hate” underscores the strength of his feelings. This controversial statement distinguishes Open from most sports biographies, which celebrate the subject’s love of their profession. In addition, Agassi’s admission signals his determination to be honest and open in his account.

“It’s no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature.”

Agassi uses analogies throughout the memoir to compare life to tennis. He highlights how the unpredictable nature of the game, in which a player’s performance tends to peak and trough, mirrors life’s highs and lows. The battles Agassi describes experiencing on the tennis court echoed the misfortunes and triumphs of his life, and the author emphasizes that resilience is a key factor in both.

“The dragon has a brain, a will, a black heart—and a horrifying voice. Sucking another ball into its belly, the dragon makes a series of sickening sounds. As pressure builds inside its throat, it groans. As the ball rises slowly to its mouth, it shrieks.”

The memoir conveys young Andre’s childhood fear of the modified ball machine he thought of as the dragon. His vivid description of its terrifying attributes, including its mouth and voice, shows that he perceived the machine as a monstrous living entity. The text emphasizes the terrifying specter of the dragon to symbolize the relentless emotional and physical pressure of professional tennis and the toll it took on the author.

“The warden has tacked several years to my sentence, and there’s nothing to be done but pick up my hammer and return to the rock pile.”

Imprisonment is a recurring motif in the memoir, representing Andre’s lack of agency and how his father decided his career. The author uses vocabulary related to prison life to describe the extension of his stay at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. Ironically, his talent meant that his “sentence” was indefinitely increased.

“The system is rigged, guaranteed to produce bad students as quickly and efficiently as it produces good tennis players.”

Agassi’s account of the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy draws attention to the practice of hothousing child prodigies in tennis while neglecting their general education. The author points out that this system ultimately leaves young players with no options other than to turn professional. While Agassi was relieved to give up regular schooling, it was a decision he deeply regretted later in his life.

“I’m an adolescent who’s seen too much, a man-child without a checking account.”

The memoir highlights how, as an 18-year-old, Andre occupied an indeterminate space between childhood and adulthood. The author’s account reveals his conflicted sense of identity during his late teens. While he still lived at home and his father controlled his finances, he was also a professional tennis player who had won significant prize money. These contradictions highlight his struggle to achieve autonomy and a sense of authenticity.

“I notice something on the faces of fans too. The way they watch me and ask for my autograph, the way they scream as I enter an arena, makes me uncomfortable, but also satisfies something deep inside me, some hidden craving I didn’t know was there. I’m shy—but I like attention. I cringe when fans start dressing like me—but also dig it.”

Thematically supporting The Impact of Fame on Mental Health, this passage describes how his sense of identity flagged as fans began to idolize and imitate him. As a teen with little self-esteem, he was both flattered and disconcerted by this response. Ultimately, the author suggests that this level of attention was unhealthy at a time in his life when he had no clear concept of who he was.

“I absorb the role of villain-rebel, accept it, grow into it. The role seems like part of my job, so I play it.”

Elaborating on the same theme as the previous quote, Agassi addresses the media’s stereotypical representation of him as the “villain-rebel” of the tennis world. The author explores the impact of this label on his identity and mental health. He suggests that by accepting and playing up to the role, he made the mistake of allowing others to define him, complicating his quest for authenticity.

“My life has always belonged to someone else. First, my father. Then Nick. And always, always, tennis. Even my body wasn’t my own until I met Gil, who is doing the one thing fathers are supposed to do. Making me stronger.”

The author reflects on his lack of autonomy from birth as his father and then Nick Bollettieri molded him into a tennis player regardless of his wishes. Agassi’s interactions with his trainer, Gil Reyes, contrast with these experiences. While Gil helped him become a better player, he tailored his training program to Agassi’s needs and goals, respecting his individuality. Consequently, Gil became the benevolent father figure he previously lacked.

“If I must play tennis, the loneliest sport, then I’m sure as hell going to surround myself with as many people as I can off the court. And each person will have his specific role. Perry will help with my disordered thoughts. J.P. will help with my troubled soul. Nick will help with the basics of my game. Philly will help with details, arrangements, and always have my back.”

Agassi emphasizes the importance of his chosen family to his mental well-being. Throughout his life, the author depended on these friends and confidantes to provide stability and a balanced perspective. While the press mocked him for possessing an “entourage,” his chosen family was vital in helping him survive the tennis circuit, which he portrays as a lonely and alienating environment.

“It’s the house of an arrested adolescent, a boy-man determined to shut out the world. I walk around this new house, this deluxe playpen, daring to think how grown-up I am.”

Agassi reflects on purchasing his first bachelor pad. From the perspective of greater maturity, he realizes that the house, filled with arcade games, was a “deluxe playpen” and not the home of a grown man. The author’s ability to satirize his younger self illustrates the deep introspection and psychological insight for which Open has received praise.

“I think about the pain my hair has caused me, the inconvenience of the hairpieces, the hypocrisy and the pretending and the lying.”

Agassi’s long hair was inextricably linked to his image as a tennis player during the early years of his career. While the public interpreted his hairstyle as an expression of a rebellious character, Agassi created the look to conceal his premature balding, and he also wore a hairpiece. His hair came to represent his inability to be open and honest. Thematically, Agassi’s decision to shave his head was a major step in The Journey of Self-Discovery and Authenticity.

“I’m on my toes, feeling like Wyatt Earp and Spider-Man and Spartacus. I swing. Every hair on my body is standing up. As the ball leaves my racket a sound leaves my mouth that’s pure animal. I know that I won’t ever make this sound again, and I won’t ever hit a tennis ball any harder, or more perfect. Hitting a ball dead perfect—the only peace.”

Agassi’s description of his sensations as he was immersed in a game illustrates the vivid immediacy of his prose when describing tennis matches. His comparison of himself to iconic figures such as Spider-Man and Spartacus conveys his feeling of absolute power as he hit the ball. The description of his body hairs standing on end evokes the sense that he was intensely alive and alert. While much of the memoir details the mental and physical toll of tennis, this passage conveys the brief transcendental joy Agassi experienced when he hit a ball perfectly.

“All that work and anger and winning and training and hoping and sweating, and it leads to the same empty disappointed feeling. No matter how much you win, if you’re not the last one to win, you’re a loser.”

Here, Agassi describes the relentless nature of professional tennis. He explains that victories provide only brief satisfaction because if players do not keep on winning, they become “losers.” The passage conveys the perpetual emotional pressure involved in the career.

“Apart from the buzz of getting high, I get an undeniable satisfaction from harming myself and shortening my career. After decades of merely dabbling in masochism, I’m making it my mission.”

Agassi’s description of taking crystal methamphetamine during his worst mental health crisis is one of the memoir’s most shocking revelations. With the benefit of hindsight, the author recognizes his substance misuse as a deliberately self-destructive act. Sabotaging the career that he never chose was his only form of agency.

“It seemed too convenient, too important for fans, and Nike, and the game, that Pete and I be polar opposites, the Yankees and Red Sox of tennis. The game’s best server versus its best returner. The diffident Californian versus the brash Las Vegan.”

Agassi discusses the media’s representation of him and his major competitive rival, Pete Sampras, as foils. The media’s presenting them as “polar opposites” in character and playing style illustrates its need to label individuals in the public eye and create contrast to sell media. Nevertheless, Agassi’s attempts to get to know Sampras revealed that they were indeed very different individuals. The author vacillates between critiquing and envying Sampras’s calm manner and single-minded dedication to tennis.

“I can’t believe the irony. A 60 Minutes piece caused my father to send me away, to break my heart, and now a 60 Minutes piece lights the way home, gives me the map to find my life’s meaning, my mission.”

After watching a 60 Minutes documentary about charter schools, Agassi decided to establish his own for underprivileged children. The decision provided the meaning and purpose that his life lacked, thematically marking a significant development in his experience of The Journey of Self-Discovery and Authenticity. The author reflects on the coincidence that, years earlier, a 60 Minutes documentary exposing the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy as a “sweatshop” prompted his father to send him to the.

“Brooke is in the kitchen, sobbing […] She’s sitting on a stool at the butcher block island. Always an island. One way or another, we spend all our time together on islands. We are islands.”

Islands symbolize loneliness in the memoir. Here, the author uses this imagery to convey the emotional distance between him and his first wife, Brooke Shields. The couple vacationed at various idyllic islands during their relationship, but these vacations only emphasized their incompatibility. The author presents it as fitting that their marriage ended with Brooke sitting at the island in their kitchen, crying.

“A ball feels different off every player’s racket—there are minute but concrete subtleties of force and spin. Now, hitting with her, I feel her subtleties. It’s like touching her, though we’re forty feet apart. Every forehand is foreplay.”

Here, Agassi describes the first time he played against his second wife, tennis champion Steffi Graf. He presents their union as a perfect match because they have similar backgrounds, admire one another as players, and understand the demands of professional tennis. The passage conveys an additional layer of intimacy in the relationship that only two tennis players could experience.

“I sound as though I’ve been hypnotized, or brainwashed, which isn’t new. I say the same things I’ve said before, the same things I’ve mouthed during countless news conferences and interviews and cocktail-party conversations. Are they lies if I’ve come to partially believe them? Are they lies if, through sheer repetition, they’ve taken on a veneer of truth?”

The author depicts his frustration with himself as, in interviews, he continued to say what the public wanted to hear: that he had loved tennis all his life. Agassi recognized that the truth would be unacceptable to tennis fans but felt that dishonesty damaged his integrity. His memoir repairs this earlier failure to be open and true to himself.

“I play and keep playing because I choose to play. Even if it’s not your ideal life, you can always choose it. No matter what your life is, choosing it changes everything.”

In the later years of his career, Agassi underwent a radical change of attitude toward tennis. Instead of feeling compelled to play by factors beyond his control, he resolved to choose to play for himself, finally achieving a sense of agency. This shift in psychology dramatically transformed his game, leading to a career resurgence.

“Several sportswriters muse about my transformation, and that word rankles. I think it misses the mark. Transformation is change from one thing to another, but I started as nothing. I didn’t transform, I formed. When I broke into tennis, I was like most kids: I didn’t know who I was, and I rebelled at being told by older people. I think older people make this mistake all the time with younger people, treating them as finished products when in fact they’re in process. It’s like judging a match before it’s over, and I’ve come from behind too often, and had too many opponents come roaring back against me, to think that’s a good idea.”

Agassi challenges the media’s notion that he “transformed” from a rebel to a mature athlete during the course of his career, suggesting instead that he simply underwent natural maturation. He emphasizes the injustice of being judged and critiqued as a teen, given that few individuals’ characters are fully formed by that time in their lives. Again he employs a tennis analogy, implying that labeling a person in their youth equates to deciding the winner of a match before it ends.

“I’m astonished, yet again, by the connection between two players on a tennis court. The net, which supposedly separates you, actually links you like a web. After two bruising hours you’re convinced that you’re locked in a cage with your opponent. You could swear that his sweat is spraying you, his breath is fogging your eyes.”

Open has received critical acclaim for its literary quality, which elevates the text above many standard sports memoirs. This passage exemplifies Agassi’s vivid, engaging writing style as he describes the raw intimacy between tennis opponents as they battle against one another. His use of figurative language, comparing the connection to being in “a web” or “locked in a cage,” underscores this intense dynamic, while the hyperbolic description of spraying sweat conveys the physical stamina that such encounters demand. In addition, this description illustrates the view of tennis that claiming agency for his game created, which contrasts with his understandable view during his younger years that it was a game of isolation.