London - With the publication of his explosive autobiography drawing closer this month, extra revelations mean potential extra sales, with the Andre Agassi's 1990 mullet wig the latest yarn to emerge. Serialisations in the Times of London spell out the story in detail: the "image is everything" player spent more time two decades ago in his first time on the big stage worrying about the state of his receding hairline than he did about the state of his game.
The latest twist explains how the then 20-year-old lost the 1990 French Open final to Andres Gomez while a wearing an extravagant hairpiece.
"Every morning I would get up and find another piece of my identity on the pillow, in the wash basin, down the plughole," Agassi wrote of his disappearing natural hair.
"I asked myself: you want to wear a toupee? On the tennis court? I answered myself; what else could I do?"
After shampooing the rug the night before the final, it started to fall apart, with the young player more worried about that disaster than what might happen on court.
With the help of his brother Phil,the pair made repairs with Agassi taking to the clay looking like the young rebel he was meant to portray.
"During the warming-up training before play I prayed. Not for victory, but that my hairpiece would not fall off.
"With each leap, I imagine it falling into the sand. I imagine millions of spectators move closer to their TV sets, their eyes widening and, in dozens of dialects and languages, ask how Andre Agassi's hair has fallen from his head."
Agassi finally bit the bullet a few years later and shaved his head bald,thereby overcoming the sticky question of his missing mane.
"A stranger stood before me in the mirror and smiled," said the eight-time Grand Slam winner.
The book has sparked a firestorm as Agassi, who retired in 2006, revealed that he had taken crystal meth on multiple occasions in 1997 and managed to dupe the ATP into ignoring a positive dope test through a fabricated letter of explanation.
Agassi said in the excerpts that he "unwittingly" took the drug, claiming in his letter to the ATP that he had unwittingly drank from a glass spiked with the drug by a former assistant.
"Then I come to the central lie of the letter," he writes. "I say that recently I drank accidentally from one of (an assistant) "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."
Drug-testing is now under the control of the international body
