The superficiality of success

Andre Agassi’s autobiography Open is the best sports biography I have ever read.

It’s a brutally honest book about what was going on in Agassi’s mind as he became a globally famous tennis player. As he continually repeats throughout the book, despite the wealth and fame it gave him, Agassi hated playing tennis. 

Agassi grew up in Las Vegas with an relentlessly driven Dad who demanded endless practice and even created a machine to fire tennis balls at him to speed up his reflexes and strength. His Mum was not able to challenge her husband’s aggression and passively focussed on jigsaw puzzles.

Orphan narrative

There is something of an orphan narrative as a young Agassi is packed off to a tennis academy in Florida and is separated from his best friend. He describes it as a ‘prison camp’ and hates it. The combination of his poor behaviour and his immense talent means he is allowed to drop out of school very early. But this also means tennis becomes the only thing he can do, the only route to take.

Agassi has a stellar rise but is sensitive to the continual criticisms that he is brash, cocky and superficial. He films an advert for Canon with the by-line ‘Image is Everything’ and this becomes another stick for critics to beat him with.  But at the same time, he is deeply insecure and secretly wears a hair-piece to hide his premature balding.

Ambivalence

Even winning the Wimbledon title in 1992 is shot through with ambivalence:

‘In the locker room I stare at my warped reflection in the trophy. I address the trophy and the warped reflection: All the pain and suffering you have caused me.’

Success does not reduce his inner turmoil about meaning, purpose and identity:

‘Winning Wimbledon has done nothing to salve it.’

Shallowness

Like Matthew Perry’s autobiography, Open is a reminder of the ultimate shallowness of many of the things our culture idolises: fame, wealth and success.

Agassi marries ‘the woman of his dreams’, actress and model Brooke Shields. On the surface it looks perfect but from their wedding day onwards, their different values and priorities drive them apart. Agassi actually meets Perry when his wife guest stars in Friends. But it’s an awkward encounter as Agassi feels insecure among these Hollywood stars and leaves early.

But if wealth, success and a beautiful wife do not bring the ultimate answers, what does?

A new family

Much of the book focusses on the importance of Agassi’s relationships – with his brother, his best friend, his trainer, his pastor and his coach all playing huge roles in his story. They provide the family that Agassi needs to survive the pressurised world of elite sport.

His brother persuades him to come to church and he writes about the pastor, known as J.P.:

‘He drags me to church and I have to admit the pastor is different…I like the casual vibe of the service. He simplifies the Bible. No ego, no dogma. Just common sense and clear thinking…He says he wants his church to feel unlike a church. He wants it to feel like a home where friends gather.’

J.P. ‘s non-judgemental friendship and guidance becomes a vital support:

‘I think he has more answers than he’s letting on. And I need answers. I consider myself a Christian but J.P.’s church is the first one where I have felt truly close to God.’

Suffering

Somewhat surprisingly, Agassi writes that his favourite movie is Shadowlands, the biopic of the writer C.S. Lewis starring Anthony Hopkins. He quotes Lewis’ character reflecting how suffering changes us:

‘God wants us to grow up.’ 

It’s a theme he reflects on further after meeting Nelson Mandela and hearing him speak without bitterness about his many years in jail. Its the underlying theme of the whole book: what does ‘growing up’ look like?

Relationships and service

As well as the superficiality of success, Open is also a reminder of the fulfillment that comes through relationships and service to others.

Agassi starts a relationship with Steffi Graf, someone who understood his world and also had a pushy father. He cannot believe it when he discovers that Shadowlands is her favourite movie too. The joy he finds in their marriage and family embodies a reconciliation in his complex relationship with tennis.

And Agassi chooses to close the book by writing with passion and detail about the academy school that he has established in a deprived area of Las Vegas. It’s another picture of redemption – the years spent winning tennis matches have enabled work for a higher purpose:

‘After all these years I’ve got what I always wanted, something to play for which is larger than myself and yet still closely connected to me.’

Something larger than myself yet closely connected to me. Its a great description of what so many of us are seeking.