How Did Andre Agassi's Father's Voice Become His Own?

David Senra reads Andre Agassi's account of the day his father's voice became his own. At seven, Agassi won his first seven tournaments and his father had no reaction, because winning was what he was supposed to do. Down a set in a tournament that meant nothing, he was stunned and scared his father was going to kill him. After years of rants, one loss made him take up the rant. He had internalized the impatience, the perfectionism, and the rage until the voice felt like his own. From that day, as Agassi tells it, he no longer needed his father to torture him.

The father's mother lived with the family, nagged her son from boyhood, and often beat him. Agassi's account treats that sad, lonely past as the source of the boiling rage. Day after day he hit while his father yelled to hit harder. Tennis was the father's life. He lay in bed, saw a court on the ceiling, and played imaginary matches there. He was tormenting his son to live out unfulfilled dreams.

Agassi believed he had to keep playing so he could help a family without much money make money. They lived in Las Vegas, where his father worked as a casino captain. Agassi later searched for a way to fix himself and is not harsh in the same way with his own kids. The father learned the habit from his mother and never stopped the cycle.