By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, September 24, 2026
Photo credit: Laver Cup Facebook
Andre Agassi’s account of rising from tennis rock bottom to return to the sport’s summit is a central theme of his memoir Open.
In a Q&A with her clothing sponsor, Uniqlo, Emma Raducanu said reading Agassi’s memoir was an eye-opening experience.
The 2021 US Open champion Raducanu said she was inspired by Agassi creating his own training regimen with fitness trainer and mentor Gil Reyes. The pair developed equipment specifically designed to strengthen Agassi, who famously ran up “Magic Mountain”, the hill near his Vegas home, throughout his off-season work-out program.
“I was especially intrigued by the passage where he got out of his slump in the late 1990s by creating his own training regimen and finding his way back to the top,” Raducanu said. “It speaks in depth about his early successes, and the lows he reached perhaps as a result of them. A lot of it was so relatable.”
Hall of Famer Agassi, who will captain Team World in this weekend’s Laver Cup at the O2 Arena in London, appeared on BBC’s Breakfast Program where he was informed of Raducanu’s comments and asked his what advice he’d give to the 2021 US Open champion.
Agassi’s advice for Raducanu was simple: Be the best you can be every day and believe in your self-identity.
“I would encourage her to focus on being the best of herself on a daily basis, but don’t judge that by results or thinking that somehow you have to be 100%,” Agassi told BBC. “”You have to learn to be 100% of whatever percent you’re at [and] be comfortable in your own identity inside of that – not what people say.
“Back in my day, I could just put down the paper and not read it. Now it seems like it’s harder for these youngsters to avoid.”
In Open, Agassi recalled the experience of dropping down to play the Challenger circuit after his ranking plummeted to No. 141.
“Fans laugh and yell things. How they mighty have fallen!” Agassi writes in Open. “Image is Everything, eh buddy?
“A high-ranking official says publicly that Andre Agassi playing a Challenger is like Bruce Springsteen playing a corner bar…I’m ranking number 141 in the world, the lowest I’ve been ranked in my adult life, the lowest I’ve dreamed of being ranked.”
Injury-induced inactivity has seen former world No. 10 Raducanu fall to No. 98 as she’s been limited to 21 matches in 2026. The 23-year-old Briton missed both Wimbledon and the US Open recovering from a stress fracture in her lower right leg.
Agassi said he’s pleased his memoir is still inspiring players nearly two decades after publication.
“It’s wonderful to hear that anybody can relate,” Agassi told BBC Breakfast. “It was literally the hope that if one person read it and it gave them hope, some tools to understand that they’re not alone, they can figure it out and get to a healthier place without having to direct their frustrations at the game of tennis, then it was a success for me.
“So, hearing that 17 years later it can still impact somebody, especially in this game, it does make me feel good.”
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