Agassi makes us feel his panic as a small, seven-year-old in Las Vegas, training all day under the obsessive gaze of his abusive father. We see him at thirteen, banished to a tennis camp in Florida. Lonely, afraid, a ninth-grade dropout, he rebels in a way that will soon make him an icon of the 1980s. By the time he turns professional at sixteen, his new look promises to change tennis forever, all like his lightning-fast return.
And yet, despite his raw talent, he struggles from the start. We feel his confusion when he loses to the best in the world, his greatest confusion when he starts winning. After stumbling in three Grand Slam finals, Agassi shocked the world and himself by winning Wimbledon in 1992. Overnight, he became a fan favorite and media target.
Agassi brings a near-photographic memory to every crucial match and every PR. Alongside vivid portraits of rivals, Agassi relentlessly chronicles his brief time with Barbra Streisand and his doomed marriage to Brooke Shields. He reveals the depression that shatters his confidence and the mistake that costs him almost everything. Finally, he recounts his spectacular resurrection and his march to becoming the oldest man ever to be number one.