Agassi’s Admission: Meth Use and a False Explanation

In October 2009, Andre Agassi disclosed two things in excerpts from his forthcoming autobiography: that he had used crystal meth in 1997, and that he had lied to tennis authorities after a positive drug test. The eight-time Grand Slam champion said the ATP accepted his explanation of accidental ingestion and dismissed the case. He called that explanation “the central lie of the letter.”

The admission returned to a difficult year in his career. By late 1997, Agassi’s ranking had fallen to No. 141. He had won Wimbledon in 1992 and an Olympic gold medal in Atlanta in 1996, but was then playing in tennis’s equivalent of the minor leagues. That decline was the backdrop to his account, not proof of what the drug had done to his tennis.

In the memoir excerpt, Agassi described an assistant he called Slim putting powder on a coffee table and snorting it. Agassi followed. “I snort some. I ease back on the couch and consider the Rubicon I’ve just crossed,” he wrote. He recalled regret and sadness giving way to euphoria, then a burst of domestic activity: dusting furniture, scouring the tub and making beds.

Later that year, according to the account, Agassi was walking through New York’s LaGuardia airport when he received a call telling him he had failed a drug test. He wrote that he was told crystal meth fell into the recreational-drug category and that he faced a three-month suspension. “My name, my career, everything is now on the line,” he recalled. “Whatever I’ve achieved, whatever I’ve worked for, might soon mean nothing.”

Days later, he wrote a letter to the ATP with a legal pad in his lap. His description of its construction was precise: “It’s filled with lies interwoven with bits of truth.” He said he told the ATP that Slim, whom he had since fired, was a drug user who spiked his sodas with meth. Then came the claim Agassi admitted was false—that he had accidentally drunk from one of those sodas and unknowingly taken the drug.

He asked for understanding and leniency. In Agassi’s telling, the ATP reviewed the case, accepted the explanation and threw it out. When the revelations emerged in October 2009, ATP spokesman Nicola Arzani said he would not comment “at the moment.”

Agassi had retired in 2006. The excerpts circulated ahead of his autobiography’s November 9, 2009, release. His recollection ended with the assurance he had given himself after signing the letter: “I feel ashamed, of course. I promise myself that this lie is the end of it.”