Open: An Autobiography

To make matters worse, journalists write down exactly what I say, while I’m saying it, word for word, as if this represented the literal truth. I want to tell them, Hold it, don’t write that down, I’m only thinking out loud here. You’re asking about the subject I understand least - me. Let me edit myself, contradict myself. But there isn’t time. They need black-and-white answers, good and evil, simple plot lines in seven hundred words, and then they’re on to the next thing.

Eighteen years old, wearing a frosted mullet and denim shorts, my first signature look

If I had time, if I were more self-aware, I would tell journalists that I’m trying to figure out who I am, but in the meantime I have a pretty good idea of who I’m not. I’m not my clothes. I’m certainly not my game. I’m not anything the public thinks I am. I’m not a showman simply because I come from Vegas and wear loud clothes. I’m not an enfant terrible, a phrase that appears in every article about me. (I think you can’t be something you can’t pronounce.) And, for heaven’s sake, I’m not a punk rocker. I listen to soft, cheesy pop, like Barry Manilow and Richard Marx.

Of course the key to my identity, the thing I know about myself but can’t bring myself to tell journalists, is that I’m losing my hair. I wear it long and fluffy to conceal its rapid departure.

Only Philly and Perry know, because they’re fellow sufferers. In fact Philly recently flew to New York to meet with an owner of Hair Club for Men, to buy himself a few toupees. He’s finally given up on the headstands. He phones to tell me about the astonishing variety of toupees the Hair Club offers. It’s a hair smorgasbord, he says. It’s like the salad bar at Sizzler, only all hair.

I ask him to pick one up for me. Every morning I find a little more of my identity on my pillow, in my sink, in my drain.

I ask myself: You’re going to wear a hairpiece? During tournaments?

I answer: What choice do I have?

AT INDIAN WELLS, in February 1988, I blaze my way to the semis, where I meet Boris Becker, from West Germany, the most famous tennis player in the world. He cuts an imposing figure, with a shock of hair the color of a new penny and legs as wide as my waist. I catch him at the peak of his powers, but win the first set. Then I lose the next two, including a hard, tough third. We walk off the court glowering at each other like rutting bulls. I promise myself I won’t lose to him the next time we meet.

In March, at Key Biscayne, I face an old schoolmate from the Bollettieri Academy, Aaron Krickstein. We’re often compared to each other, because of our connection with Nick and our precocious skills. I’m up two sets to none and then wear out. Krickstein wins the next two sets. As the fifth set starts I’m cramping. I’m still not where I need to be, physically, to reach the next level. I lose.

I go to Isle of Palms, near Charleston, and win my third tournament. In the middle of the tournament I turn eighteen. The tournament director rolls a cake out to center court, and everyone sings. I’ve never liked birthdays. No one ever took note of my birthday when I was growing up. But this feels different. I’m legal, everyone keeps saying. In the eyes of the law, you’re a grownup.

Then the law is an ass.

I go to New York City, the Tournament of Champions, a significant milestone because it’s a clash of the top players in the world. Once more I square off against Chang, who’s developed a bad habit since we last met. Every time he beats someone, he points to the sky. He thanks God - credits God - for the win, which offends me. That God should take sides in a tennis match, that God should side against me, that God should be in Chang’s box, feels ludicrous and insulting. I beat Chang and savor every blasphemous stroke. Then I take revenge on Krickstein. In the final I face Slobodan Zivojinovic, a Serb better known for his doubles play. I beat him in straight sets.

I’m winning more often. I should be happy. Instead I’m uptight, because it’s over. I’ve enjoyed a triumphant hard-court season, my body wants to keep playing on hard courts, but clay season is starting. The sudden switch from one surface to another changes everything. Clay is a different game, thus your game must become different, and so must your body. Instead of sprinting from side to side, stopping short and starting, you must slide and lean and dance.

Familiar muscles now play supporting roles, dormant muscles dominate. It’s painful enough, under the best of circumstances, that I don’t know who I am. To suddenly become a different person, a clay person, adds another degree of frustration and anxiety.

A friend tells me that the four surfaces in tennis are like the four seasons. Each asks something different of you. Each bestows different gifts and exacts different costs. Each radic-ally alters your outlook, remakes you on a molecular level. After three rounds of the Italian Open, in May 1988, I’m no longer Andre Agassi. And I’m no longer in the tournament.