Does being made to start playing tennis at age 3 and being forced by his father to continue when he hated it make Andre Agassi an abused child?
Anyone who has ever seen a bio-pic of retired tennis great Andre Agassi has seen video clips of a tiny boy playing tennis like an adult. Every time I saw those clips I wondered if Agassi really wanted to be out there training like a pro and giving exhibitions when he was 7 years old. Now I know. He hated it. Even so, he kept on playing, became the number one player in tennis, fell to 141 in the rankings, then came back and completed a career Grand Slam and won 8 major titles. Now Agassi is retired and has published a tell-all book. He hated tennis. When his career fell apart he took drugs. Even after he made a comeback and became one of the elder statemen of tennis, he still hated it.
You can't help asking yourself: Why did Agassi continue to play tennis all those years? After he had made a few million dollars, why didn't he tell his father to take a hike and quit the sport once and for all? Many tennis players begin playing as very young children, and many have parents who push them to excel. We have heard the stories of Jennifer Capriati and Mary Pierce, who certainly were emotionally abused by their fathers, if not physically. But Andre Agassi? Here is a man who didn't retire from professional tennis until he was 36 years old, and then it took a severe back injury to force him out of the sport. What was he doing all those years he was playing a sport he hated? What was he thinking?
Andre Agassi's incredible return game and powerful groundstrokes did much to change the style of tennis. Being incredibly fit, playing from the baseline and running other players around, having the stamina to play on with ease after he had worn out his opponent--this is how the game is played today by most of its top stars. Yet it's hard to reconcile all that with hating tennis. Maybe a man who dropped out of school after the 9th grade didn't think he had alternatives. Maybe the money and celebrity balanced his hatred of the sport. Or maybe he is just spinning another myth around himself. After all, this is the guy who never quite escaped his early statement (in a commercial) "Image is everything." Maybe this is the new Agassi image?
