Andre Agassi: Kyrgios 'needs to get to the heart of his disconnect'

Andre Agassi has stayed relatively out of the spotlight since his retirement in 2006, but he’s never stopped learning and using his platform to better society.

His livelihood—in addition to his two kids and wife of nearly 16 years, Steffi Graf—is the Andre Agassi Foundation, which has made tremendous progress in its goal to transform public education.

The tennis icon’s latest venture, which debuted just last month, combines two of his lifelong passions: teaching and tennis.

Agassi has launched his first online course through Udemy, entitled “Elevate Your Tennis Game: Learn from Champion Andre Agassi.”

The eight-time Grand Slam champion spoke to TENNIS.com about the course last week, and also offered his thoughts on Roger Federer, the new wave of up-and-coming American tennis players, his illustrious 20-year career and polarizing Australian Nick Kyrgios.

After Kyrgios’ loss to Andreas Seppi in Melbourne last month, Agassi told reporters that he relates to the 21-year-old and respects the fact that he’s been open about not loving tennis.

Asked by TENNIS.com what he’d like to see from Kyrgios moving forward, and what he believes he needs to do to turn his career around, Agassi maintained that his situation isn’t as black and white as others have made it out to be.

“I don’t spend a lot of time telling people what they should do, because the truth is you don’t know what’s causing what’s actually going on,” Agassi said. “He’s been pretty clear about the fact that it’s not his favorite thing to do, to play tennis. It’s good news that he’s willing to admit that at this stage.

“…I’m not sure the reasons for his conflicts, but if you’re dealing with a fundamental conflict with even loving the game or wanting to play it, the truth is you’re going to be very unpredictable. And when it comes easy, you’re going to take the good of what it offers you, and when it doesn’t you’re going to resent the hell out of it. It appears from outside that that’s kind of the trend that we’re seeing.”

Ultimately, Agassi said, it will come down to whether Kyrgios wants to make a change. And nobody knows the answer to that question but him.

“If his goals and objectives were to maximize [his] talents, you would have to start at the root of his disconnect with the game itself," Agassi said. "…If he’s not right mentally, emotionally, it almost sometimes doesn’t matter how much talent you have ... Somebody needs to get to the heart of his disconnect and help him come to terms with it.

"And he has to want that for himself. He might be just fine with the way he lives and with the way he feels, the way he plays and what life he has. If that’s the case, it doesn’t matter what a good teacher you are or good coach you are. You can’t coach somebody that doesn’t want to be coached. So that’s unfortunately a tale that we all kind of have to watch unfold.”

If Agassi sounds like a philosopher, it’s because he pretty much was one in his approach to the game. His new course touches on the mental side of tennis, but the main objective is to make you a more complete tennis player. That means improving your technique through drills, teaching strategy and shot selection, and using your strengths to build confidence.

“I’ve always looked for interesting ways to try to stay involved in the game,” Agassi said, “that were practical to my allocation of time and energy based on all my responsibilities. So I thought this was one real nice way to kind of get on that group level with people directly and scalably.”

The comprehensive course consists of 62 lectures, encompassing just over an hour of video content.

"My life is much more fulfilling to me now than it was," the Hall of Famer said, "but, honestly, that is something that I can actually say—day by day—is the case. That's because of the choice on how you engage on a daily basis. I'm feeling more fulfilled every day."