Stuck in a date

I have been a fan of Andre Agassi from the time he burst on the scene in the late 80's. My brother, who was touring the US during that time frame, brought back a Tennis magazines that featured Agassi and I was hooked. After Ivan Lendl retired, I needed a player to root for and I stuck with Agassi through thick and thin.

When I found out he was coming out with an autobiography, I was excited and pre-ordered it from Amazon that day itself.

To whet our appetites, an excerpt was released on Sports Illustrated (link here). Lost in the scandal about recreational drug use was the story of a kid who did a fantastic job of hiding his dislike for the game. It is compelling reading, but not without its critics.

Martina Navratilova is shocked at Agassi's admissions. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are not far behind in expressing their displeasure, too.

In India, Harsha Bhogle stepped onto a soapbox and used his column to slam Agassi for letting down his fans and that he had "spoilt the week" filled with other good news. His thesis is that pardoning Agassi would open the floodgate to impressionable fans choosing to go Agassi's route. I am not sure Harsha thought this through well enough. This article is not up to his normal standards. He starts off with a statement that is so absurd, it bears repeating here:

Andre Agassi has just added a convenient truth to an earlier, convenient lie. In an attempt to come out smelling of roses, he does far too much damage to those who look up to him, and other sportsmen, as role models. At the best of times it’s a flawed equation, this assumption that a fine sportsman is a fine person, but it exists and I fear Agassi may have given people reason to indulge in drugs.

What? Did he really write that? He, of all people, should know better than to gauge the contents of a book based on a few articles in the media. To quote Sherlock Holmes: "It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment."

Rick Reilly (of ESPN.com) goes to the other extreme and lauds Agassi for his honesty.

Why is Agassi so scorchingly honest in these excerpts? Maybe because he once lived enough lies for five men. Or maybe because, as an educator, he's heard the truth can set him free.

But hopefully, by the time you close "Open," you'll know that this book is about more than the wrong turns he took. It's about how that broken road led him straight to the good man he is now.

Finally, I will leave you with Prem Panicker, who addresses Harsha's article and provides a searchingly personal article in support of Agassi's decision.

I don’t mean to suggest that post facto honesty absolves Agassi of a ‘crime’ we would have known nothing about had he not chosen to speak to the record. He confessed, and now he can take whatever knocks come to him, and welcome.

I do, however, intend to point out that in our obsession with the ‘scandalous’ coda to the story of a life lived on the edge [from which we single out for notice not the important bits, but such inanities], we are perhaps in danger of overlooking the intrinsic worth of this book. And that (...) would be a tragedy, because such openness is rare enough to be treasured.

I shall read the book from cover to cover. For all his faults (and he appears to list so many of them) Agassi has been at the helm of many great causes, and the reason for many of my fond memories of tennis. I shall always hold him in high stead for that.

(C.S. Manish 2007)