Andre Agassi and the power of stories

Open by Andre Agassi is one of the best sports memoirs ever written and highlights the value of working with a ghostwriter to reflect on your journey.

“I open my eyes and don’t know where I am or who I am.

Not all that unusual—I’ve spent half my life not knowing.”

The introduction to Andre Agassi’s memoir Open sets the scene for a sports book that highlights the power of our stories.

Agassi collaborated with a ghostwriter, J.R. Moeringher to write a book that uses Agassi's love-hate relationship with tennis to explore deeper themes including:

- our quest for self-identity;
- how our past and our parents shape us;
- the need for connection;
- and how we respond to life’s challenges and setbacks.

Reflecting on his life before his final tournament as a tennis player, Agassi writes:

“My mind these days has a natural backspin. Given half a chance it wants to return to the beginning, because I’m so close to the end. But I can’t let it. Not yet. I can't afford to dwell too long on the past.”

Whether or not Agassi phrased it this way or the ghostwriter came up with the backspin analogy doesn’t matter — it’s a great turn of phrase.

A few paragraphs later, Agassi looks at himself in the mirror:

“I stare at my face. Red eyes, grey stubble—a face totally different from the one with which I started…Whoever I might be, I’m not the boy who started this odyssey...I’m like a tennis racket on which I’ve replaced the grip four times and the strings seven times—is it accurate to call it the same racket? Somewhere in those eyes, however, I can still vaguely see the boy who didn't want to play tennis in the first place, the boy who wanted to quit, the boy who did quit many times.”

Again, the tennis analogy is used to explore the journey he’s been on. Here’s another great example:

“It’s no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. Even the structure of tennis, the way the pieces fit inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, mimics the structure of our days. Points become games become sets become tournaments, and it's all so tightly connected that any point can become the turning point.”

In an article about how ghostwriters are coming out of the shadows, the journalist told a story about a conversion she overheard at an airport. A guy reading Agassi’s memoir turned to his partner and said:

“It doesn’t seem fair that Agassi is such a great tennis player and such a great writer.”

Yes, Open is Agassi's story, but his partnership with his ghostwriter helped him tell it in a way he couldn't have achieved alone.

What are some of your favourite books written with a ghostwriter?