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Andre received penalties in several tournaments for shouting at himself, swearing, and failing to attend post-match press conferences. He admitted to Gil that he was unmotivated to win after losing to Sampras at the US Open.

Brooke and Andre’s favorite restaurant in New York was Campagnola. When the manager confided worries about affording his kids’ college fees, Andre put Nike shares in a trust for their education. In helping the restaurant manager, he felt more fulfillment than in any of his tennis achievements.

Brooke regularly received letters from stalkers who threatened to kill her. Gil sometimes traced the stalkers and paid them an intimidating visit. Other times, he guarded the house. Andre’s relationship with Brooke was deteriorating, and he worried that he was losing her as well as his tennis career. Perry, Philly, and J. P. were all about to get married. When Andre proposed to Brooke in Hawaii, she accepted, but he felt uncertain that he had made the right decision.

At Wimbledon in 1996, Andre lost in the first round to a qualifier ranked 281st. As Brooke planned their wedding, he looked forward to following in his father’s footsteps by participating in the Olympics. He won Gold with his father in the crowd. However, only days later, Andre’s elation had faded, and he felt inexplicably angry. At Cincinnati, he won the tournament but smashed his racket during the game. In the first round at Indianapolis, he deliberately hit the ball out of the stadium and swore when the umpire gave him a warning, defaulting the match. The crowd booed as the match was canceled. After Thomas Muster called him “a prima donna,” Andre enjoyed beating him in the US Open quarterfinal. However, Chang defeated Andre in the semifinal, and the press accused him of “tanking,” while proclaiming Sampras “the best player of his generation” when he beat Chang in the finals (239). Brad advised Andre to withdraw from the Australian Open and spend time with Brooke.

Brooke and Andre bought a property in the Pacific Palisades with a view of Sunset Boulevard. She loved the house, but it didn’t feel like home to Andre. While he was at the 1997 Golden Globe Awards with Brooke, Gil called, revealing that his 12-year-old daughter, Kacey, had broken her neck in a sledding accident. Andre flew to Vegas and parked his minivan outside the hospital so that Gil could sleep there after visiting hours. Gil insisted that Andre compete at San Jose. He did but lost in the semifinals, feeling unfocused.

Andre contemplated postponing or canceling his wedding. His assistant, Slim, stayed with him in Las Vegas and suggested that they get high. After using crystal methamphetamine for the first time, Andre was euphoric. He manically cleaned the house and didn’t sleep for 48 hours. Meanwhile, Brooke was absorbed in wedding preparations, dieting and working out. For inspiration, she put a photo of a woman with “perfect legs” on the refrigerator door. The woman was Steffi Graf.

Andre trained hard for the Davis Cup and won his matches, achieving one of the best Davis Cup scores by an American. Reporters praised his performance while asking why this success did not translate to other tournaments.

In April 1997, Andre married Brooke in a Monterey church as paparazzi circled in helicopters. Brooke, almost six feet tall, insisted that Andre wear lifts in his shoes. He sweated profusely during the ceremony. When a decoy bride left the church to misdirect the paparazzi, Andre wished a decoy groom could have married Brooke.

The wedding reception was at a ranch. In the bridal suite, Andre had arranged for hundreds of lit candles. However, they made the room unbearably hot. When Andre and Brooke blew them out, they triggered the smoke detectors. The next day, Brooke arranged for them to arrive at a celebratory barbecue on horseback. Later, while playing with his nephew, Andre injured his wrist.

Due to his injury, Andre pulled out of the 1997 French Open. However, he intended to play Wimbledon because Brooke had an acting job in England at the same time. Once in London, Andre realized he did not want to play and withdrew.

After losing his game at a tournament in Washington, DC, Andre announced he was taking the summer off. Brooke was in Los Angeles, and Andre remained in Las Vegas, using drugs with Slim. Slim’s girlfriend had a premature baby who needed specialist care available only in Phoenix. Andre arranged a medical airplane for the baby and traveled to Phoenix with Slim and his girlfriend. He rented a house for them near the hospital.

Brad persuaded Andre to play at the ATP Championships in Cincinnati. However, when Andre lost in the first round, the Davis Cup team dropped him. At the 1997 US Open, Andre was unseeded and lost to Pat Rafter. Rafter could not hide the pity in his smile when they shook hands at the net.

Arriving at Stuttgart airport for a tournament, Andre immediately saw Sampras. He now realized that the media’s representation of them as “polar opposites” was not an exaggeration. Having always scorned Sampras’s lack of work-life balance, Andre reconsidered his rival’s dedication to tennis and found it admirable. Andre was beaten at Stuttgart in the first round.

Brad had a serious talk with Andre, insisting that he either quit or dedicate himself to training and keeping the right mindset. Andre reflected that he still hated tennis but many people feel that way about their jobs. He agreed to follow Brad’s advice.

At 27 years old, Andre committed to change. However, a doctor from the ATP called him, revealing that Andre had tested positive for crystal methylene in a recent test. If he admitted to knowingly taking the drug, he would be suspended from professional tennis for three months. Andre wrote to the ATP, claiming that he inadvertently drank a soda spiked with meth belonging to Slim.

Gil helped Andre begin training all over again, drawing up a new regime. In early 1995, ranked 141st, Andre entered a Challenger tournament, the kind he had played at the beginning of his career, in which the matches had no ball boys and the players maintained their own scoreboards. Andre lost in the final but was relieved just to be playing.

A week later, Andre entered another Challenger in a Burbank public park. He played there on Thanksgiving Day, while Chang and Sampras were in the Davis Cup. A tennis official compared Andre’s appearance at the Challenger to Bruce Springsteen playing a gig in a corner bar. Brooke was working nearby on her successful new TV show, Suddenly Susan, which Perry was producing. Neither Andre nor Brooke asked how the other’s work was going.

Andre agreed to a tennis event in South Africa for the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Upon meeting him, Andre was struck by the wisdom in Mandela’s eyes and his lack of bitterness after 27 years of imprisonment. Mandela’s speech emphasizing the importance of caring for oneself and others resonated with Andre. When Mandela described how he endured captivity by educating himself, Andre felt ashamed of his complicity in his own lack of education given that it meant so much to many others. He suddenly wanted to grow up. With Perry’s help, Andre established a charitable foundation to help underprivileged inner-city children and resolved to establish a charter school.

Determined to succeed, in 1998 Andre beat Sampras in the final at San Jose. In the press conference, reporters laughed when Andre announced his intent to be ranked number one in the world again. He won his second straight tournament at Scottsdale, motivated by the thought of raising money to establish the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy. His lawyer called to say that the ATP had accepted his explanation for the failed drug test, so he would not be suspended.

During a match at Wimbledon against Tommy Haas, the linesman and umpire refused to consider Andre’s claim that a ball was out. He lost the match but saw from the coverage that the ball was out; nevertheless, he laughed about it. He won the final of the Legg Mason in Washington, DC, and the Mercedes-Benz Cup. When he beat Sampras at the du Maurier Open in Toronto, he knocked his rival from the number-one ranking, raising his own to number nine. Richard Krajicek beat Andre in the semifinals, but he accepted the loss stoically.

Brooke, returning home from making a film, revealed a new dog tattoo on her hip. Shocked, Andre suggested that she should have consulted him. She accused him of being controlling. The couple took a delayed honeymoon to Necker Island (one of the British Virgin Islands), owned by Richard Branson. Andre wanted to relax, while Brooke insisted that they take scuba diving lessons. He quit the lessons, and the couple returned home three days earlier than planned.

While Brooke was out with her actor friends, Andre often chose to stay at home. Brooke suggested that Perry, J. P., Philly, and Brad exploited Andre and stopped him from maturing. Brooke and Perry had not been getting along, and he had quit his role as producer on Suddenly Susan. The couple’s New Year’s Eve party was dominated by Brooke’s friends. Perry and Andre bought a plot to build the academy in a deprived neighborhood of West Las Vegas. Brooke did not attend the groundbreaking ceremony.

The night before Andre played at the 1999 Australian Open, Brooke called, suggesting they should talk when he returned. Preoccupied by Brooke’s call, Andre lost his match. Sportswriters implied that Andre did not know when to retire.

Andre returned home, and he and Brooke went out to eat. She criticized him for always ordering the same thing and started to cry. On the way home, she admitted that she did not think they could be happy together. Andre packed some belongings, including a gift from Brooke: a replica of the Louvre painting depicting the man on a cliff edge. Andre wondered how the man still hung on. Spending the night in a cheap motel, he was surprised at the depth of his distress and realized that he hated losing.

Taking Brooke’s advice, Andre saw a therapist. Afterward, he faxed Brooke a long letter stating that he wanted to save their marriage. When Brooke remained adamant that he solve his issues without her, however, Andre requested a speedy divorce. He pawned his wedding ring and donated the money to the academy in Brooke’s name.