Open was one of the best books I’ve ever read and I’m not even a tennis fan. I wanted a good autobiography to read and Open came up as highly rated on Amazon so I decided to give it a try. I certainly knew of Andre Agassi but have never even really watched tennis before. Open turned out to be an extremely well written autobiography that had me glued to the pages and made it a challenge to put the book down.
One of the big standouts to me in the book was the fact that Andre was raised to be a tennis player. His father had decided that his son would be a professional tennis player before Andre was even born. One of the earliest things his father did to start Andre on his tennis journey was he had him hit dangling tennis balls with a ping pong paddle when he was just a baby lying in his crib! The most shocking thing of all however was that Andre hated tennis. It was never his choice to get into the sport, and he was pretty much abused into the elite levels of tennis by his father. When Andre became an adult, he really contemplated leaving the sport, however tennis was all he knew. It was not until Andre had a family and his own school that he started playing for a purpose greater than himself.
Andre was extremely candid throughout the book as it brought us throughout his life’s journey. We all knew of his high points, but he made no qualms about opening up on the lowest points of his personal and professional life. The book doesn’t read like a series of events, but more in the style of a book that should be turned into a movie. I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good read!