Now that this year’s US Open is underway, I thought it would be a good idea to recognize one of the sport’s greatest figures, Andre Agassi, and encourage you to pick up his book, Open. In it, he offers a deeply honest and painful account of his struggles with his difficult relationship with his father, with hating a sport for which he was unnaturally gifted, and with himself.
The book starts off during his second to last match against Greek player Marcos Baghdatis at the US Open in 2006. At 36 years of age, it is at this point of his life that he has all but succumbed to the blinding pain in his back due to sciatica, a vertebral displacement condition called spondyloisthesis and a bone spur. He recounts the sheer effort and will it took to get out there and push past the pain to eventually win the match. He was (and still is) a fighter, just like his father. Continue reading