ANDRE Agassi has always been competitive.
Once asked who would win a tennis match between his son Jaden, whose mother is Steffi Graf, and his greatest rival Pete Sampras's son Christian, he remarked: "I got a hundred bucks says my baby beats Pete's baby. I just think genetics are in my favou
r."
So it should come as no surprise that when Agassi decided to confess to a drug problem, it would be the revelatory equivalent of a 155mph ace serve. Agassi's revelation in a forthcoming autobiography that he took crystal meth in 1997 while at the peak of his tennis career and, after failing a drugs test, lied in order to avoid a ban, saying he accidentally ingested the stimulant by sipping from his assistant's spiked vodka, has horrified the international tennis community.
There have been accusations that the former Wimbledon champion has let the entire sport down, and that his reputation will never recover. Yet Agassi, sounding more like he was working for the Crystal Meth Promotion Board than repenting his sins, was keen to go into detail. He likened taking the drug to a "tidal wave of euphoria that sweeps away every negative thought in my head. I've never felt so alive, so hopeful," he enthused. "And I've never felt such energy."
Boris Becker, who played Agassi 14 times on the men's tour, including twice at Wimbledon, can't understand why Agassi has gone public. "I'm struggling to get my head around why Andre would want to confess to something so damaging as taking drugs and then getting away with it," he remarked last week, scratching his distinctive strawberry blond bonce. "Why would he want to be so brutally honest?"
One word, Boris: sales. In today's over-saturated celebrity biography market, being a well-known name is no longer enough. There needs to be a story. And boy, does Agassi have a story to tell.
Born in the dusty gambling city of Las Vegas in 1970, Agassi disliked tennis as a boy, perhaps because his father was forcing him to hit balls around tennis courts as soon as he could walk. Emmanuel, known as Mike, was a tough, domineering Iranian who represented Iran in boxing at the 1948 and 1952 Olympics before emigrating to the US. He pushed Agassi at tennis, reportedly taking a hammer to matches and banging on the fences in rage if Agassi didn't win.
Coaches were less aggressive, and spotting his potential early on, sent him to a residential tennis academy in Florida at the age of 16. By the time he was 18 he had won six titles and reached the semi finals of the French and US Opens, cementing a sturdy international reputation.
Agassi's was the ultimate precocious tennis sensation. With his long, bleached mullet hairdo, earrings and day-glo neon kit, he resembled a young Billy Ray Cyrus although thankfully, one with considerably more talent. In character meanwhile, he cultivated a John McEnroe-esque attitude, giving lip to umpires, mugging for the cameras and shedding tears when he lost. America loved him and his arrogant look-at-me attitude, while women flocked to tennis matches to gaze adoringly at his toned thighs. Even though a grand slam title continued to elude him into his early 20s, he was one of the US's most high-profile players, even if several of his contemporaries on the circuit sneeringly referred to him as "the sewer rat".
A typical spit-the-dummy act was Agassi's decision in the late 1980s to shun Wimbledon, refusing to play there in a fit of punk rocker rebellion because of its all-white dress code. It proved a foolhardy decision when, in 1992, having finally relented to its strict rules, he took to the courts and finally won his first grand-slam title. During a five-set Wimbledon final against Croatian Goran Ivanisevic, so wrought with tension that centre court crackled with the electricity, the world held its breath. By the time Agassi held the winner's trophy aloft in front of an adoring crowd, he had become a superstar. The age of Agassi had begun.
During those golden years he was remarkably outspoken. He enjoyed teasing the press, once remarking of Sampras: "Nobody should be ranked No 1 who looks like he just swung from a tree". The US Open two years later was followed by the Australian Open, and in 1995 he was ranked World No 1 for the first time. He was also one of the world's most eligible bachelors and revelled in his bad boy status, dating several older women including, according to press reports, Barbra Streisand. Finally he married Hollywood actress Brooke Shields in 1997 in a lavish, star-studded ceremony, the same year he was, it now seems, taking crystal meth. Their relationship was turbulent from the start and they were said to have rowed frequently. By 1999 they were divorced.
No longer the wild rebel of the court, it was an altogether more fully-formed, grown-up character who won the French Open men's singles title in 1999 – his first grand slam title in five years. It was at the French Open winners ball that, high on their respective singles titles wins and taking to the floor for the traditional champions' dance, sparks began to fly between Agassi and the German player Graf. "There was a level of destiny we felt, something special cut both of us," Agassi later said of the meeting, although he also confessed that what first attracted him to her was "her legs".
Their agents arranged for them to practise together and attend a tournament in Miami. Soon, they were in a full-blown relationship. They married in October 2001, four days before the birth of their first child Jaden Gil. They subsequently had a daughter in 2003, named Jaz Elle.
Agassi finally ducked out of professional tennis in 2006 having made around $30million in prize money, giving an emotional speech to a teary crowd at the US Open after being knocked out in the third round. By then his charity, the Andre Agassi Foundation, had been up and running for several years. Its centrepiece is a school, Agassi Prep, which sits in a low-income area of Las Vegas. The words of Winston Churchill, "Never give up. Never, never, never," are written on every classroom wall.
Nowadays, Agassi and Graf like to promote an image of stylish domestic bliss in Las Vegas, telling reporters they enjoy staying home listening to U2 and George Michael and even posing cradled in each others arms and surrounded by luxury luggage for a Louis Vuitton advertisement. Agassi will turn 40 next year.
Book sales aside, perhaps this is the real reason behind Agassi's decision to go public with his shocking revelation about his use of crystal meth. Now a committed family man with a loving wife, a wealth of charity work under his belt, a dinner party-friendly record collection and a picture perfect 2.4 children, perhaps Agassi felt an urge to revisit those rebellious early days; to metaphorically dust down the old mullet, pull on the day-glo sweatbands and relive his hell-raising youth.
Even the most competitive of tennis players can suffer from a mid-life crisis.
