I Played Tennis With Andre Agassi At The US Open And Learned A Life Lesson

But the most embarrassing (for me) and impressive (for Andre) part of the game wasn’t his trademark two-handed backhand or his powerful forehand, it was something else entirely; he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I could see them coming from the other side of the court. Like anyone who’s played the game for a while, I can read what kind of shot my opponent is making with my eyes, my ears, and especially by noticing the path the ball takes over the net toward me. The most obvious options are a flat ball that bounces up and down where it should be, a heavy top-spin shot that dives headfirst into my side of the net and then bounces high and powerfully upward, or an underspin slice shot that slides and slows down considerably on impact. So I saw Andre’s right hand come up behind him and then send the ball slowly and low toward me, giving me plenty of time to get in position to get the ball out with a wicked top-spin crosscourt backhand. The advantage, in theory, was that IRight?

Here’s the thing: That ball never got close to my racket. I was swinging through thin air at the ball I was waiting for, the ball that almost everyone who played with me gave me when they swung their racket like that. What I actually got was magic; a ball that basically died when it hit the ground, bouncing off a grass court on a hard court. I should have dropped my racket and applauded, really; instead, I just laughed again.

“What?!” Andre shouted from the other side of the net. “It’s just a drop shot. Do you want me to shoot it? Stronger?”

After about half an hour of this – the good, the bad and the ugly, the euphoria (his jabs) and the agony (my jabs) – I waved the white flag and Andre and I walked to the edge of the court, where two of the Emirates cabin crew were waiting for us with cold towels on our faces and crystal glasses of ice water on a tray.

After some more advice from Andre (apparently the thing I should do more than anything else in tennis, calm my body), I had one last question for him. It was about what he said in the suite, about always being honest about how he felt about the game. It was something Andre talked a lot about in his autobiography, Open—is not only one of the best books ever written about tennis, it is also one of the best, most open, and honest memoirs I have ever read.