Word: agassi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Fans will devour Agassi's juicy revelations about both himself and other tennis luminaries. Thanks to his father, Agassi's childhood was hellish, the backyard court his personal prison. Later, he battled depression, donned a hairpiece, dabbled in drugs and threw a hissy fit after his then girlfriend (now ex-wife) Brooke Shields licked Joey's hand on that episode of Friends. According to Agassi, Boris Becker blows, Pete Sampras is a terrible tipper, and in the Wimbledon locker room John McEnroe once called Agassi's future wife Graf a bitch...
Open is not without faults. Sometimes Agassi's photographic memory works against him. Even the most fervent racquetheads will tire of the play by play. But if you're remotely intrigued by the mysteries of sports psychology, don't skip Agassi's breakdown of his classic 2005 U.S. Open win against James Blake. Agassi uncoils the choices a player must make in nanoseconds--"How aggressive do I want to be? Where do I want to station myself?"--while bringing you into the belly of his brain. "Rip it," Agassi tells himself...
...book devotes a heap of space to profiling the posse that aided Agassi's rise. Gil Reyes is the hulking trainer--part bodyguard, part wizard--who forced Agassi to funnel a cocktail of salt, electrolytes and vitamins known as Gil water before matches. Brad Gilbert is the Bud-guzzling coach who made Agassi a master strategist. There's the childhood best friend/manager, the pastor and the brother who always stuck by him. They are compelling characters. Agassi, however, should have given them florid thank-you notes in person, not on the page...
...Agassi also gets gooey about Graf and their two children. But unless you're part android, the notes a road-weary, heartsick Agassi writes to his toddler son will move you. Fathers may wonder why they don't do the same thing. I know this...
Toward the end of his career, a tennis commentator said Agassi went from "punk to paragon." Agassi, who has dedicated his post-tennis life to expanding the Las Vegas charter school he founded, hated that handle. He insists the Agassi of the mullet and acid-washed jeans wasn't a punk; he was just lost. And "paragon" is simply hyperbole. Agassi's evolution, however, is still striking. So we'll offer him a more fitting, if less catchy, epithet: from anguished soul to outstanding author...