Do you believe Andre Agassi really "hates" tennis?

The Game Room
1

I read his wonderful book this summer and probably the most famous thing he says in it, at least to tennis fans, is that he hates tennis. He always has, he says.

He goes on about it too. He does not say, “I hated tennis and what it did to my body. Even though it was my life and I was competitive and wanted to win, I hated it almost all the time.”

That, I would get. Any player can have a love/hate relationship with their sport.

However, Andre emphasizes over and over and over that he never enjoyed tennis. At all. He doesn’t like the sport: the rules of it, the way it is played, the way the league is set up, everything.

I’m not sure I believe him, though. I think he’s trying to sell books by emphasizing that he didn’t like it.

Listen to this interview, especially at the end when he is asked about Federer. He says, “I’m reaching the end of my time as a tennis enthusiast to predict Federer’s decline.”

That interview was, I believe, yesterday. He played Pete Sampras last night for fun(charity, perhaps?).

When talking casually, he calls himself an enthusiast. Also, when I watched him play, he clearly loved it. He loved winning, he loved watching, he loved talking to fans, he loved the competition.

Heck, he played until an older age than most players and even rose back to number 1 after a steep decline.

Do you think Andre Agassi hates tennis? Or is he just exaggerating?

2

The kind of insane training and competition you need to engage in at a young age to be a great tennis player would probably make anyone hate it, and Agassi had one of those overbearing tennis dads to go along with it. I bet most Olympic-level gymnasts end up feeling the same.

3

I guess the only question I would have about his claim is how he bottomed out and started using drugs, then cleaned up and jumped from nowhere back into the top 10. What made him want to come back?

4

This is why I think he should have said, “I hated tennis for nearly all of my life. I learned to hate it as a child. Only as a an adult could I ever begin to appreciate or enjoy it.”

He doesn’t. He presses very hard in the book that he still hates it and always did.

It doesn’t vibe with how his eyes light up when he talks about it in many interviews(not the one I linked to) and how he describes it.

5

I don’t remember him complaining about the rules or the ATP. I think he says “I hated tennis” because it makes the emotions a lot clearer than just saying “I had a complicated relationship with tennis” (which was also certainly true). His father comes across as a monster in the book: he forces Andre to practice constantly from a young age (he did that with all four of his children), has him hustling older players all the time, and his only interest is in training his son to be a great tennis player.

When Andre is thinking about turning pro, he calls his father and asks if he should go ahead and do it. His father asks him something like ‘what else are you going to do, be a doctor?’ Andre’s not prepared for anything else in life except hitting a tennis ball. He’s essentially stuck with this life, or at least he feels he is. I do think there is real hate, and I think that’s what it is really about. It’s not for the game of tennis, it’s for the things that went into him being a professional tennis player. The lack of choices, the pushing, the pressure, the injuries. He also emphasizes in the book that he took a different attitude toward tennis later in his career and he’s pointed out that tennis gave him fame and fortune and his family, and he does play these exhibitions (like last night’s, with Sampras) once in a while.

What he actually says it “Listen, I’m out of the business now of predicting when Federer’s on a decline.” He doesn’t say he’s not an enthusiast anymore. It’s a comment about Federer, not his relationship with tennis.

6

Nor with the beatific expression of amazement and wonder on his face when he won the French Open, thus completing the career Grand Slam. Someone who hated the sport would have just have casually and expressionlessly walked off the court, idly tossing his racket and towel aside in the process.

[Responding to #4-durned Marley snuck in a post before I hit my button]

7

I agree and didn’t mean to say either. He calls himself an enthusiast, which is not how he claims to view himself in the book.

I’ll have to get the book out, but I swear that he does talk about how the rules of tennis make it actually a very boring sport to him.

8

Perhaps a blanket statement of “I hate tennis” is an exaggeration, but I’m sure Agassi means it (or thinks he means it) when he says it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Elvis found himself saying “I hate music,” or Emeril Lagasse yelled “I hate cooking,” or Bruce Willis groaned on a set “I hate acting!” And at that moment, each man was probably in earnest. After calming down, they’d probably explain, “Okay, it’s not the music/cooking/movies that I hate, it’s all the stuff that comes with it.

For you or me, tennis is a game, something we do to kill time, get a little exercise, or have a little fun. But to a pro, tennis isn’t a game, it’s a full-time job. In Agassi’s case, it’s a job he was studying and training for day in and day out since he was a little kid. Is it any wonder he got sick of it?

And even if he still enjoyed the game itself, remember that only a tiny percentage of his time was spent playing tennis matches. There was work, training, practice, travel, interviews, more work, more travel… a celebrity in any field spends precious little time doing the things he actually loves, and a lot more time dealing with all the baggage that comes with it.

In a more lucid moment, Elvis probably would have said, “Okay, I don’t hate music. I love the music, I just hate all the crap that comes WITH being a musician.” Emeril would probably say, “I still love cooking… I just don’t actually DO much cooking any more.

There’s an anecdote from Edward G. Robinson that comes to mind. He’s supposed to have said, “Acting is fun. I’d do that for free. They pay me for the waiting around.”

In tennis or in any sport or any field of show biz, there’s a lot of unpleasant stuff that has to be endured, just so that you can enjoy the brief time in which you really get to perform.

9

I think you may be de-emphasizing the way his views change starting around 1999, when he begins his last major comeback. The point, I thought, was that he wouldn’t have made the effort to become a top player again if he hadn’t started to see the good in it.

I don’t remember that, but it’s possible.

10

I honestly don’t remember him changing his statement at that time. That is what I expected, but I don’t remember it.

11

I remember something from an interview of his years ago, when he was in the middle of his tennis career (highly ranked). I remember the general theme was that he was frustrated to pour so much into his game and not win more majors. I always remembered that. I always got the feeling he couldn’t enjoy not being the absolute best.

I actually got this vibe from Mario Lemiuex over the years. He always seemed bitter to be so freakishly good… so ridiculously awesome… and he wasn’t the best (seemed to fall to Gretzky).

For Agassi… it was worse, because he was never even the Mario Lemiuex of tennis.

12

Eight majors is a lot, but there were few people who would consider him better than Sampras, and I’m sure that was frustrating. In the book he says he was devastated by his loss to Sampras in the 1995 U.S. Open finals. He had a very good year in '95 and was unbeaten during the U.S. summer tournaments, but he couldn’t finish it by beating Sampras.

13

Well, 8 is a big amount and he won each tournament, fairly rare.

His point in his book isn’t frustration, but actual hatred of the sport. It was a very frustrating read as a huge fan of his. Loved the book, think it is probably the best sports biography ever written, but it was frustrating all the same.

14

Agassi was pretty clearly the second-best player of his time, but you don’t get to second-best without wanting to be the best. (I’m sure even Federer was totally frustrated by his few losses during his ridiculous run a few years ago).

15

It seems to me that he could easily hate tennis while wanting to be the best at it. Someone who is extremely competitive will want to be the best at whatever it is they’re good at, even if they happen to hate it and are only good at it due to family pressure at a young age. Being ecstatic about winning a tournament does not mean he can’t hate the game itself.

16

Right, I could see being very happy to win the French Open, while also finding that it’s a job and a chore for you, and wishing you could have had the same level of success at something just a little more fun. I mean, pro tennis isn’t all that interesting: try and get a good serve in, then volley until one of you misses (OK, about half the time you get to decide whether to try to volley to your opponent’s left or right). There’s not a lot of strategy, fakes and feints, tactical adjustments, or interesting decisions.

And unlike astorian, I think it could go well beyond hating ‘the business of professional tennis’ (the travel, stupid publicity events and so forth) to actually hating playing the stupid game. I don’t really see Elvis feeling that way, but maybe the drummer for a bubblegum pop band, who would really rather be playing jazz but is getting paid way too much to quit.

17

I must say, the book is really excellent.

My favorite part is near the end. Andre goes to visit his Dad in the hospital and they talk about Andre’s career, which has been excellent.

After the talk, Andre looks at his Dad and he realizes something.

His Dad hates tennis, too.

18

Please leave the analysis of tennis to people who watch tennis. :wink:

19

Good Lord.

That’s not even close, I mean not even within a mile of being true. I had no idea anyone thought this.

20

BUMP

I’m bumping this because Andre has now been inducted into the tennis hall of fame. He gave a speech that more or less acknowledges that he does like tennis. His quote from his book goes:

However, here is what he said at his induction.

I wish his book had contained more about his changing feelings of tennis in his later career.