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Tennis legend Andre Agassi admits to using crystal meth in autobiography (pictures)
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Andre Agassi on the cover of his upcoming autobiography
Tuesday, Oct. 27 - In his upcoming autobiography "Open" being released on November 9th, tennis legend, former world #1, and eight time Grand Slam champion Andre Agassi admitted to using crystal methamphetamine during the 1997 season. The information was released by SI.com media analyst Richard Deitsch on his Twitter account earlier this morning, but was subsequently removed.
For those who remember their tennis history, 1997 marked the year Agassi married actress Brooke Shields, but it was also the beginning of a downward slide in Andre's career that continued for two years. Hampered by a wrist injury and falling woefully out of shape, Agassi saw his ranking drop into the 100's before recovering from the injury, committing himself to fitness in a manner he never had to that point in his career, and rebounding to win the career Grand Slam - an accomplishment only six men (Roger Federer being the most recent) can lay claim to.
While no further details of Agassi's admission have been released to this point, the announcement comes as something of a revelation given the squeaky clean image most professional tennis players enjoy when it comes to recreational drug use. John McEnroe has admitted to using cocaine during the early years of his career, however such examples are few and far between. The more recent cases involving touring professionals using non-performance enhancing drugs are Richard Gasquet and former women's #1 Martina Hingis, with Gasquet having recently won his appeal of a two year suspension after convincing officials that he'd accidentally ingested trace amounts of cocaine by kissing a woman he'd met in a Miami area night club earlier this year, and Hingis opting for retirement over fighting her suspension when she also tested positive for cocaine two years ago. Most interestingly, when Hingis tested positive she had even less cocaine in her system than Gasquet did, and the amount she tested positive for was so low that if it had been administered by the US military she would have passed.
Since retiring in 2006 Agassi has been a champion for several charitable causes and has opened a charter school in his hometown of Las Vegas. He has also recently re-emerged on the tennis court, competing in Outback Champions tour for the over 35 circuit and renewed his rivalry with fellow tennis legend Pete Sampras this past weekend at an exhibition in Macau, which Sampras won in three very tight sets. Whether Andre Agassi's admission of crystal meth use being brought to light ahead of the book's release is a ploy to drive book sales time will tell, however that does likely appear to be the case and will no doubt make for a compelling read once the book hits newstands in early November.
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Yahoo! Sports Blog contributed to this report
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