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Seven-year-old Andre lived in Las Vegas. He played tennis all day, though he longed to do something else, and hated the ball machine he thought of as “the dragon.” Andre’s father, Mike, an Iranian-born Armenian, modified it to fire at 110 mph and tower over his son. Consequently, Andre had to hit balls on the rise before they flew over his head. His father shouted and cursed, urging him to hit them harder and earlier. Mike Agassi believed that if his son hit 2,500 balls daily, he would become a tennis champion.

Located in the Nevada desert, the Agassi family home had barred windows and was surrounded by a green concrete wall. The roof was covered in dead hawks that Andre’s father shot when they flew over the property. Mike worked as a casino captain in Las Vegas but bought a home in the desert so that he had room to put in a tennis court, which he built himself with no prior experience.

Mike decided Andre would be a tennis player before he was born. Hanging a tennis ball mobile over his son’s crib, he taped a ping-pong racket to Andre’s hand. When Andre was four, Mike strung Jimmy Connors’s rackets when he was in town and had Andre deliver them to the tennis star. Connors made fun of Andre and his father, and his companions laughed. Mike sometimes took his children out of school to play at Cambridge Racquet Club. Andre’s older siblings (Philly, Rita, and Tami) were good players, but Andre was the best and got most of Mike’s attention. Andre loved his father and wanted to please him but also feared his mercurial temperament. An aggressive man, he often experienced road rage. He once reached across Andre in the car, pulled a gun out of the glove compartment, and pointed it at another driver. Another time, he fought with a truck driver, leaving him unconscious in the road, and instructed Andre not to tell his mother.

When Andre was almost eight, he entered junior tournaments, winning seven consecutively. In one match, his opponent, Jeff Tarango, claimed that Andre’s winning shot was out and insisted that he was the winner. Andre refused to shake Tarango’s hand.

Andre’s father, Mike, grew up in Tehran. His mother often beat him, and he learned to fight when she sent him to school in girls’ clothes. He came to love tennis while watching American and British soldiers play. Mike became a boxer and was a member of the 1948 Iranian Olympic team. Shortly afterward, he emigrated to the US, working as an elevator operator and fighting in boxing matches at night. When Andre was young, Andre’s Uncle Isar arrived at their home after fleeing Iran. He was gentle and kind, and Andre liked to jump out and surprise him. One day, however, he mistakenly surprised his father instead. Mike reflexively punched his son, knocking him to the floor, and sent him to his room. Andre wished his mother, Betty, would stand up to his father.

Mike saw tennis as a route to wealth. He took Andre to the Alan King Tennis Classic, where a wheelbarrow full of silver dollars was the tournament prize. When Andre was nearly nine, Mike got him a job as a ballboy at the tournament, where he fell for a ball girl named Wendi. Mike often asked the players to hit balls with his son. Björn Borg graciously agreed, Jimmy Connors was begrudging, and Mike pretended not to hear Ilie Nastase’s refusal. While playing against Andre, Nastase taunted him about his crush on Wendi. When Andre stormed off mid-play, his father did not reprimand him.

One day, Mike challenged famous football player Jim Brown to play against nine-year-old Andre. Andre feared losing the $10,000 his father wagered on his victory. Brown changed the bet to $500, and Andre won. Shortly afterward, Andre played against his father. When Andre was winning, Mike petulantly abandoned the game. Andre was jubilant, ranking it as his best win so far.

When Andre was 11, he lost in the semifinals at Nationals. However, he was awarded a trophy for the player with “the most grace on the court” (54). He was secretly pleased but told his father he did not want the trophy, so Mike smashed it and threw it in a dumpster. Andre considered team sports less lonely than tennis and enjoyed football. However, after he injured his leg in a football game, his father ordered him never to play again.

Mike was determined to make Andre the world’s number-one tennis player, a plan that failed with his other children. Rita rebelled against her father and ran off with Pancho Gonzalez, a tennis player 30 years her senior. Tami failed to improve, and Philly lacked “the killer instinct” (56). Although Philly remained a good player, Mike often called him a “loser.” Nevertheless, Philly showed no resentment toward Andre’s talent, and the brothers were friends and confidantes. Philly warned him not to take any pills their father gave him at a tournament, revealing that he would progress from caffeine tablets to speed. As Philly predicted, Mike gave Andre a new pill at Nationals. Andre deliberately played poorly and told his father he felt unwell. Mike looked guilty and said they would not use the pills again.

An older boy, Roddy Parks, beat 11-year-old Andre at the Las Vegas Country Club. Afterward, another boy, who introduced himself as Perry Rogers, told Andre not to worry about the loss, but Andre responded rudely. He later discovered that Perry was another player and now had a vendetta against him.

Andre accepted an invitation to the movies when he learned that Perry would be there. After apologizing to him, Andre discovered that Perry was observant, smart, and funny. He too had a tyrannical father, who he believed did not love him. Andre realized that despite his father’s faults, he never doubted his love. The boys became best friends and made a pact: They would not be like their fathers, would not use substances or drink alcohol, and would do good in the world. Perry’s family was extremely wealthy, so he had his own wing in their mansion and a subscription to Sports Illustrated.

Twelve-year-old Andre was selected to play in several Australian tournaments. Each time he won, the coach rewarded him with a beer. He drank it but felt guilty about breaking his pact with Perry. When he returned, he confessed to Perry.

Andre’s father told him about a 60 Minutes documentary on a Florida tennis academy run by Nick Bollettieri. Pupils attended school in the morning and played tennis all afternoon and evening. Mike said he was sending Andre there for three months, dismissing his son’s protests. Andre later learned that the 60 Minutes documentary had exposed the Florida boot camp as a “tennis sweatshop.”

The Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy looked like a prison camp with tennis courts. Its 200 students, ages 7-19, slept in barracks. Andre felt intimidated and homesick. The lack of adult supervision meant no repercussions for bullying or getting into fights. Every night before lights out, a student named Jim Courier played the drums.

Nick Bollettieri was in his fifties but looked ancient due to his unnaturally deep tan. Andre’s fellow students described Nick as “a hustler” who monetized tennis but had no love or knowledge of the sport. One day, Nick watched Andre play and called Mike Agassi. He told Mike his son was so talented that he would coach him free of charge. Andre was horrified, seeing no end to his imprisonment.

Andre and the other tennis prodigies went to nearby Bradenton Academy in the mornings, but given their heavy tennis schedules, keeping up with the curriculum was impossible. Andre failed all classes except English literature. When the English teacher praised his poetry, he imagined a life in which he could choose to pursue this talent. Andre dreaded school and experienced social anxiety. Most of his classmates were rich and dressed accordingly. He rebelled by piercing his ears and getting a pink mohawk. He drank, smoked cannabis, and disrupted class. When Andre returned home for Christmas, Philly won $600 playing cards and gave Andre half the money to buy new clothes.

During spring break, Mike pushed 14-year-old Andre to enter semiprofessional tournaments with Philly. Andre won his first match, while Philly lost. Afterward, Philly shouted at himself, calling himself a loser and repeatedly hitting the steering wheel before returning to his usual calm manner.

Andre returned to the tennis academy and called Philly to share the news that he was now ranked 610th in the world. He immediately regretted his actions when Philly, who has always craved a ranking, asks how it feels.