Andre Agassi admits using crystal meth and lying to escape ban

Published on Wednesday 28 October 2009 21:04

ANDRE Agassi has put his reputation as a tennis legend on the line with the confession that he used the recreational drug crystal meth during his playing career and lied to men's governing body the ATP to escape a ban.

In his autobiography Open the American candidly describes being introduced to the drug in 1997 and the moment when he was informed he had failed a drugs test.

The eight-time grand slam winner, now 39, spoke of the moment he took crystal meth, a highly addictive amphetamine, for the first time when his career was in freefall. He was helped by his drug-user assistant, known as Slim.

"Slim dumps a small pile of powder on the coffee table. He cuts it, snorts it. He cuts it again. I snort some. I ease back on the couch and consider the Rubicon I've crossed," he said.

"There is a moment of regret, followed by vast sadness. Then comes a tidal wave of euphoria that sweeps away every negative thought in my head. I've never felt so alive, so hopeful – and I've never felt such energy.

"I'm seized by a desperate desire to clean. I go tearing around my house, cleaning it from top to bottom. I dust the furniture. I scour the tub. I make the beds. I sweep the floors. When there's nothing left to clean I do the laundry. I fold every sweater and T-shirt and still I haven't made a dent in my energy. If I had table silver I'd polish it."

Agassi burst on to the scene in the late 1980s with a maverick streak, long hair and a wacky dress sense that made him an instant hit with a new generation of tennis fans.

He won Wimbledon in 1992, the US Open in 1994 and the Australian Open in 1995.

However, wrist injuries and a loss of form sent his career on to the rocks in 1997 and his world ranking tumbled to 122.

A year later he began a new training regime that sparked an incredible turnaround. After a spell on the second-tier Challenger circuit he shot back up the rankings and in 1999 completed a career grand slam at the French Open.

Agassi, now married to former women's No 1 Steffi Graf with whom he has two children, ended 1999 atop the rankings after winning the US Open again. He won three more Australian Open titles before a tearful retirement in 2006. However, had tennis's doping programme been under the WADA code at the time there is little doubt his cover-up of his drug-taking would have failed and his career could have been ruined.

Agassi, in extracts from his book serialised in the Times, remembers receiving a phone call in 1997 from a doctor working for the ATP who informed him that he had failed a drugs test.

Agassi says he was walking through New York's LaGuardia airport when he got the call that he had failed a drug test.

"There is doom in his voice, as if he's going to tell me I'm dying," Agassi writes. "And that's exactly what he tells me. He reminds me that tennis has three classes of drug violation. Performance-enhancing drugs ... would constitute a Class 1, he says, which would carry a suspension of two years. However, he adds, crystal meth would seem to be a clear case of Class 2. Recreational drugs. That would mean a three-month suspension. My name, my career, everything is now on the line. Whatever I've achieved, whatever I've worked for, might soon mean nothing.

"Days later I sit with a legal pad in my lap and write a letter to the ATP. It's filled with lies interwoven with bits of truth. Then I come to the central lie of the letter. I say that recently I drank accidentally from one of Slim's spiked sodas, unwittingly ingesting his drugs. I ask for understanding and leniency and hastily sign it: Sincerely.

"I feel ashamed, of course. I promise myself that this lie is the end of it. The ATP reviewed the case – and threw it out."

Agassi's admission that he took drugs exposes the ATP's lack of strict doping controls at the time. The ITF has been responsible for the ATP Tour's anti-doping programme since 2006 and the women's WTA Tour a year later.

Agassi said he was not worried about the impact of his revelations. "I was worried for a moment, but not for long," he told People magazine's website. "I wore my heart on my sleeve and my emotions were always written on my face. I was actually excited about telling the world the whole story."

Dirty little secret shows just how far flawed genius had fallen

ANDRE Agassi has let the world in on his dirty little secret and at the same time he has a book to sell.

Put the two together and first impressions suggest money has bought a long-hidden truth.

Agassi's revelation that he used crystal meth to get high, not once, not twice, but actually "a lot" during 1997 finally provided a plausible explanation to his torrid year on the tennis court. A year in which he plummeted from eighth in the world in January to 141st by mid-November.

Of course it is a scandal. Shameful even. Precisely the sort of story any reader with a passing interest in sport cannot help be drawn to, given Agassi's standing not just as a tennis star, but a global icon.

One of only six men to win the career Grand Slam of all four majors, Agassi admits he lied to the Association of Tennis Professionals when a drugs test revealed his sordid behaviour. Incidentally, if the authorities fell for his 'spiked drink' story, that is perhaps just as concerning.

The confession can only be described as sensational. Yet measure what Agassi has to gain against what he has to lose and you begin to wonder about the motivation for the tell-all autobiography.

Yes, Agassi may make another million, but considering his career brought in more than $30 million in prize-money and no doubt an additional fortune in endorsements, and that his wife is Steffi Graf, presumably the household is not short of a cent.

Agassi is not daft, he will know the authorities are hardly going to be falling over themselves to praise his memoirs.

Some would say retrospective action against Agassi should follow, considering he admits to brazenly cheating his way out of a suspension from the tour.

A reputation gained over almost 20 years on tour has taken a direct hit overnight, with the game's much-loved showman now telling tales of the distinctly unglamorous lifestyle he briefly lived.

But consider that fateful day in early '97 when for the first time Agassi joined his pal, 'Slim', snorting meth pathetically in a Las Vegas living room.

Consider Agassi, apparently at a low ebb despite his impending marriage to Brooke Shields, needing a hit of dope to lift his spirits.

Consider the scenes of Agassi rabidly cleaning his house "from top to bottom" because of the sudden burst of energy the hit gave him. Hilarious if the circumstances were not so tragic.

Consider the inevitable comedowns. The summer he spent losing first-round tennis matches, often to nobodies, and, in his own words, the "undeniable satisfaction from harming myself and shortening my career".

"The physical aftermath is hideous," Agassi writes in the book, being serialised in The Times. "After two days of being high, not sleeping, I'm an alien."

Agassi could have kept the secret to himself and still had enough stories from his career to write a sparkling enough book. Brooke, Steffi, all those slams, the rivalry with his fellow American Pete Sampras, the difficult relationship with his pushy father.

However in a book titled Open that would have meant lying to disguise a lie, by presenting another cause for his famous fall and the remarkable comeback which followed in 1998, when he soared back to fourth in the world.

Some will say he has disgraced the sport but Agassi has surely done its youngsters a favour, inadvertently or not.

They need only to look at how that "small pile of powder on the coffee table" led him down a dark road to deep despair and deceit and left stains on his conscience.

Tennis-mad kids will read the book and be horrified by the meth story. It should deter many. Yes, Agassi came back to win grand slams, but Agassi was a tennis genius. Only now has he let us know quite how flawed a genius he was.

GRASS OR HARD

ANDRE Agassi has revealed he used crystal meth at one stage of his tennis career – but drug controversies are nothing new for tennis. Here we look at recent cases.

&#149 MARTINA HINGIS

Hingis was in the second year of her comeback when she tested positive for cocaine during Wimbledon in 2007. She was banned for two years and quit the sport, this time vowing she would not return. The 'Swiss Miss' has repeatedly protested her innocence, saying she would be "terrified of taking drugs".

&#149 JENNIFER CAPRIATI

The American won an Olympic gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games at the age of 16. But she then went off the rails and was arrested for marijuana possession, and played just one match on the women's tour over almost two and a half years. She gradually rebuilt her career and won three grand slam singles titles – two Australian Opens and a French Open crown.

&#149 RICHARD GASQUET

French player Gasquet was suspended in May of this year, pending an investigation into a failed drugs test he gave at the Miami Masters in March. However, he was cleared of wrongdoing after explaining the drug had entered his system after kissing an unidentified woman at a nightclub, and has returned to action.

&#149 GREG RUSEDSKI

Rusedski, then Britain's No 2 behind Tim Henman, tested positive for nandrolone in 2003. The news was revealed in January 2004 and two months later Rusedski was cleared after successfully arguing that any excess levels in his system must have been mistakenly given to him by trainers employed by the Association of Tennis Professionals.

&#149 MARK NIELSEN

Little-known New Zealand professional Nielsen was suspended for two years in 2006 after testing positive for finasteride, which was on the banned list due to its potential as a masking agent. It transpired Nielsen had been using an anti-balding medication which contained the substance, however that did not spare him a ban.

&#149 MARIANO PUERTA

Argentine Puerta has twice been banned from the sport due to drug offences. In 2003 he was ordered off the tour for two years, later reduced to nine months, after testing positive for clenbuterol, which he stressed had been part of his asthma medication. In 2005, after reaching the French Open final, he was banned for eight years, which was reduced to two years, after the cardiac stimulant etilefrine was discovered in his system. Puerta claimed it had entered him after using a glass used by his wife, who was on medication.