While listening I bookmarked a few of my favorite quotes: The 400-pages fly by and I wished there were more. He described “Gil” juice so well I could almost taste it and I loved the vulnerability he showed throughout the book – the bad days, the bad weeks, the heartbreak, and the incredibly accurate pain of loss. He described his trials and tribulations so vividly I could see the scrawny kid running up the hill in the dessert in Las Vegas trying to get strong. Open) and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year.” ( 1) But this book is about Andre. She also didi something absolutely unheard of, ” In 1988, she became the first and only tennis player (male or female) to achieve the Calendar Year Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles (the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Wikipedia says she has the record for the most Major wins by a tennis player of either sex. I never knew any more about Stefi until I was half way though the autobiography and decided to Google her when Andre mentioned being enamored and wanting to dancing with her at the winner’s ball after Wimbledon in 1992. I remember asking my mom if she was better than Venus and Serna Williams and Mom saying that yes, she was. I went to a match of that tournament and remember walking into Arthur Ashe stadium with my mom pointing to the banners hanging off the lamp posts – there is Andre Agassi, one of the best tennis players ever – oh, and there is his wife, Stefi Graf, arguably the best female tennis player ever.

I remember the press coverage during Andre’s last professional tennis match the 2006 U.S. I finished it in only four four days and I do not know how it took me four years to get around to reading it. Boy, was I surprised – the book is unbelievably vulnerable and absolutely incredible.

When my mom recommended Andre Agassi’s autobiography Open: An Autobiography over Christmas I finally made the plunge after hearing about it for years. Growing up my mom used to play on a variety of club and competitive teams, in high school my best friend was captain of our tennis team, and in college I was friends with members of both the men’s and women’s varsity teams at Georgetown. Tennis has been a part of my life since I can remember.

Andre agassi book review