As Emma Raducanu plots a route back to the pinnacle of tennis, the Briton has been taking inspiration from Andre Agassi’s 2009 autobiography.
Five years have passed since Raducanu’s remarkable US Open triumph, when at the age of 18 she became the first qualifier in the Open era to win a Grand Slam.
American Agassi was a teenage prodigy himself and later claimed the first of his eight major singles titles at Wimbledon in 1992 aged 22.
But between the peak years of his career, he had to overcome a challenging period when he went four years without a major and dropped to 141st in the world rankings.
“I was especially intrigued by the passage where he got out of his slump in the late 1990s by creating his own training regimen and finding his way back to the top,” Raducanu told Uniqlo.
“It speaks in depth about his early successes and the lows he reached, perhaps as a result of them.
“A lot of it was so relatable.”
Agassi said his hope was for his experiences to help other players going through similar periods in their own careers.
“It’s wonderful to hear that anybody can relate,” Agassi told BBC Breakfast.
“It was literally the hope that if one person read it and it gave them hope, some tools to understand that they’re not alone, they can figure it out and get to a healthier place without having to direct their frustrations at the game of tennis, then it was a success for me.
“So, hearing that 17 years later it can still impact somebody, especially in this game, it does make me feel good.”
Leave a Reply