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Sports

Tuesday November 10, 2009

Agassi’s book reveals lies he ‘can’t live with’

WASHINGTON: Andre Agassi tells The Associated Press his book is part of his atonement for saying and doing things he now wishes he hadn’t.

It turns out Andre Agassi was lying throughout his career.

To fans. To opponents. To tennis authorities. To first wife Brooke Shields. To friends, including Barbra Streisand. To the media. And, he says, to himself.

“I can’t live with that anymore,” Agassi said in a telephone interview.

“These lies – some of them came, certainly, out of fear. A lot of them came out of real confusion. A lot of it was thinking out loud. A lot of it was just getting stuff wrong. And a lot of it started with lies to myself,” Agassi said. “When I retired from tennis, I had the opportunity, the time, the energy, to turn a real hard lens on myself.”

His book Open, in stores from yesterday, allows Agassi to unburden himself of secrets he’s carried for years. Secrets about using crystal meth, about evading punishment for a failed drug test, about wearing a hairpiece, about what he calls a long-standing hatred of tennis.

Agassi described the memoirs, crafted by Pulitzer Prize winner J.R. Moehringer from recordings of the eight-time Grand Slam champion’s taped recollections, as part of his “atonement for where I’ve been in my life.”

Asked whether he ever took performance-enhancing substances as a professional, Agassi – who retired in 2006 – replied, with a light chuckle: “No. No. The answer is ‘No’.”

He is not surprised by the negative reactions to some of the book’s revelations. Agassi understands such responses because: “You’ve got to remember: I spent many years angry and disappointed at myself.”

He said he simply felt compelled to confess to using crystal meth “a lot” in 1997, failing a doping test that year, lying to the men’s tennis Tour about how the drug entered his system and avoiding punishment.

“How can you tell people to not hide from truth when you hide from it?” Agassi said in the interview. “While I know this story cuts against the grain of one’s perceptions of me, it is the true me. And I believe in that authenticity.”

He added: “I have no regrets about what’s in there.”

Other fascinating passages in the book:

·On Pete Sampras: Agassi says Sampras “sounds more robotic than” a parrot. At his depths, Agassi thinks: “I envy Pete’s dullness. I wish I could emulate his spectacular lack of inspiration, and his peculiar lack of need for inspiration.” Agassi tells of betting coach Brad Gilbert about how much Sampras tipped a parking valet – they ask the valet, who says US$1 – Agassi’s conclusion: “We could not be more different, Pete and I.”

·On Michael Chang: “He thanks God - credits God - for the win, which offends me. That God should take sides in a tennis match, that God should side against me, that God should be in Chang’s box, feels ludicrous and insulting. I beat Chang and savoured every blasphemous stroke.” When Chang wins the 1989 French Open, Agassi thinks, “I feel sickened. How could Chang, of all people, have won a slam before me?”

·On other opponents: Agassi writes about holding grudges against Boris Becker (who Agassi says blew kisses at Shields during a match), Jim Courier, Thomas Muster, Yevgeni Kafelnikov, Jeff Tarango (who Agassi says cheated during a match between them when Agassi was eight).

·On “tanking”: Agassi says he lost on purpose against Chang in the Australian Open semi-finals one year so he wouldn’t have to face Becker in the final, writing: “It’s almost harder than winning. You have to lose in such a way that the crowd can’t tell.” He also says of sportswriters: “They never get it right. When I tank, they say I’m not good enough; when I’m not good enough, they say I tank.”

·On his fake hair: Of the 1990 French Open final, Agassi writes, “Warming up before the match, I pray. Not for a win, but for my hairpiece to stay on.”

·On the 1999 French Open final, which he won to complete a career Grand Slam: “I’ve already obsessed about this tournament for the last 10 years. I can’t bear the idea of obsessing about it for another eighty ... If I don’t win this thing right now, I’ll never be happy, truly happy, again.” — AP

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