Andre Agassi, widely considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time, admits in a new autobiography that he hates tennis, "with a dark and secret passion" — and always has.
Because he was born with spondylolisthesis, a spinal condition where one vertebra parts from the other, leaving less room for the nerves in the spinal column, the slightest wrong movement can leave Agassi awash in pain. So over the course of a career that keeps him in constant motion, he's had to find ways to cope — cortisone shots, altering his game and eventually retirement.
Agassi's book is called Open. In it, he reveals, among other things, that he used crystal meth — and that he wore a hairpiece in the 1990 French Open to hide a bald spot.
Read in an excerpt about a day during Agassi's final tournament, the 2006 U.S. Open — how he prepared, mentally and physically, for the emotional ambiguity of retiring from a career he both loves and hates.
Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.
