Andre Agassi: Admits of using drugs

Andre Agassi: Admits of using drugs

Tennis star Andre Agassi came up with a confession of being tested positive for hard drugs during his career and also lying to sporting authorities to escape a ban. On Wednesday a report has confirmed it.

Andre Agassi, one of the world's greatest tennis players with 8 Grand Slam titles, reveals in his autobiography to testing positive for the highly addictive drug crystal methamphetamine.

Thirty nine year old tennis champion also says that he has always secretly hated playing tennis and lived in fear of his hot headed and violent father.

In the book, serialized in London-based The Times newspaper, Agassi confesses how he took crystal meth in 1997 when his form was falling and he was having doubts about his impending marriage to US actress Brooke Shields.

He duped the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) into believing he had taken the drug possession by accident. If he found guilty it would have been carried a maximum five-year jail sentence in the United States.

The repercussions for Agassi's career could have been disastrous if the positive test was made public at the time.

In the book, Agassi also recounts sitting at home with his assistant, referred to only as Slim, and being introduced to the drug.

He said, "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 just crossed”.

That same year he received a phone call from a doctor working for the ATP informing him that he had failed a drugs test - for which he could face a three-month suspension for using recreational drugs.

"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 in a hard-backed chair, a legal pad in my lap, and write a letter to the ATP.”
In 1997, Andre Agassi pulled out of the French Open and slumped down the world rankings in a loss of form.

However he resurrected his career in 1998, by making the biggest one-year leap in history into the top 10 before going on to win the French Open the next season. He finished at number one in 1999 after taking the US Open.