Andre Agassi

Andre Agassi grew up in Las Vegas, the youngest of four children of Emmanuel 'Mike' Agassi, an Iranian-Armenian former Olympic boxer who had his son hitting tennis balls almost as soon as he could walk. At 13 Andre was sent to Nick Bollettieri's tennis academy in Florida, tuition waived once Bollettieri saw him play. He dropped out of school in ninth grade to train full time, turned professional at 16 in 1986, and by the end of 1988 had earned more than a million dollars in prize money faster than anyone in the sport's history, known already for pink outfits and denim shorts nearly as much as for his forehand.

Agassi skipped Wimbledon for three straight years, 1988 through 1990, objecting to its all-white dress code, and built an early image on the slogan 'image is everything' from a camera ad that outran his actual results, he did not win a major until Wimbledon in 1992. He added the US Open in 1994 and the Australian Open in 1995, but his ranking collapsed to 141st in the world by 1997 amid wrist injuries and a failing marriage to actress Brooke Shields. He rebuilt from the bottom of the tour, winning the French Open and US Open in 1999 to complete a career Grand Slam, then added Australian Open titles in 2000, 2001, and 2003. He retired after the 2006 US Open with eight major singles titles.

In his 2009 memoir Open, Agassi disclosed he had used crystal methamphetamine in 1997, during the worst stretch of his ranking collapse, failed a drug test for it, then wrote a letter to the ATP claiming a spiked drink, a lie the tour accepted, sparing him a suspension he later said he did not deserve to avoid. He also revealed he wore a hairpiece through the early 1990s and feared it would slip off on court, including at the 1990 French Open final he lost. The book cost him some of the goodwill built by an image-driven career, replacing it with a messier, more credible one: a player who says outright that he hated the sport that made him famous for most of the years he played it.

Agassi married Steffi Graf in 2001, the two of them holding 30 major singles titles between them, and settled in Las Vegas with their two children. In 2001 he opened the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a tuition-free charter school for at-risk Las Vegas children, giving it 35 million dollars of his own money, and his foundation has raised more than 60 million dollars since. He entered the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2011 and made a professional pickleball debut in 2025. Whether tennis history settles on the image-is-everything teenager, the meth admission, or the school as his career's real throughline is still being argued, not yet resolved into one verdict.

Andre Agassi's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• Career Grand Slam completion other
  One of a handful of men in the Open Era to win all four majors 1999
• Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation company
  Raised more than $60 million for at-risk Nevada children 1994
• Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy building
  Tuition-free Las Vegas charter school — funded with $35 million of his own money 2001
• Open book
  Memoir written with J.R. Moehringer — disclosed his 1997 crystal meth use 2009

• April 29, 1970 aged 0 Born in Las Vegas, Nevada
• 1983 aged ~13 Enrolls at Nick Bollettieri's tennis academy at 13
• 1986 aged ~16 Turns professional at 16
• July 1992 aged 22 Wins his first Grand Slam title, at Wimbledon
• 1997 aged ~27 Ranking falls to 141st in the world Amid wrist injuries, a failing marriage, and, by his own later account, crystal meth use.
• June 1999 aged 29 Wins the French Open to complete a career Grand Slam
• 2001 aged ~31 Marries Steffi Graf and opens the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy
• September 2006 aged 36 Retires from professional tennis after the US Open
• 2009 aged ~39 Publishes his memoir Open and admits his crystal meth use publicly

• Pete Sampras b. 1971
  Tennis legend who held the record for most Grand Slam men's singles titles for over a decade. rival
• Arthur Ashe 1943–1993
  Tennis champion and activist who broke racial barriers and advocated for education, civil rights, and AIDS awareness. preceded him in American men's tennis
• Serena Williams b. 1981
  Tennis champion with 23 Grand Slam singles titles, widely considered one of the greatest athletes ever. successor generation
• Marva Collins 1936–2015
  Educator who founded Westside Preparatory School and proved that disadvantaged students could achieve excellence. parallel: founded a school for at-risk students