Andre Agassi is regarded as one of the best tennis players of all time. He’s an eight-time Grand Slam champion who also won gold at the Olympics. And in 1995, he spent 30 weeks ranked as No.1 in the world. Outside of his otherworldly talent for the sport, Agassi was renowned for another glorious asset — his mullet.
In the 80s and 90s, Agassi treated the tennis court like a goddamn runway, inspiring tennis plays and fans alike to serve more than just balls on the court.
With his glorious sun-kissed mullet and bold on-court fashion choices, he stood out long before he bagged the world champion title. He even managed to nab his own line with Nike called the Challenge Court Selection, inspired by his colour-coordinated fits, headbands and — of course — the brilliant sports shorts that looked like acid-wash jean shorts that changed the fashion world forever.
But at the time, Agassi held a deep, dark secret — he was losing his hair.
In his acclaimed 2009 memoir “Open”, Agassi admitted that he was using a hairpiece on the court throughout the 1990s. He even revealed he wore a “hairpiece held together by pins” in his first-ever Grand Slam match against Andres Gomez in 1990, out of fear of what journalists would write if he rocked up without his signature locks.
Sadly, Agassi lost the match and to this day believes that the worry that the hairpiece would disintegrate or fall off mid-match cost him the French Open.
“Every morning I would get up and find another piece of my identity on the pillow, in the wash basin, down the plughole,” he wrote.
“I asked myself: you want to wear a toupee? On the tennis court? I answered myself; what else could I do?”
In 1995, Agassi finally accepted his fate and shaved his head. He says it was one of the most terrifying yet freeing things he’s ever done.
“It was terrifying, but then quickly liberating,” he told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
“It was very quickly liberating. It was terrifying deciding to do it. It was terrifying when I was about to do it. It was terrifying while I was doing it. And then, it was quickly like ‘Why did I waste so much time worrying about my hair’?”
From then onwards, he returned to the court equally as fashionable with a sexy shaved head.
As we caught up with Agassi on the set of his latest campaign with Uber — which genuinely features a dog with a mullet — he explained what it takes to have a good, quality A+ business in the front, party in the back look.
“All you’ve got to do is fully commit,” he tells PTV.
“I like those that you can tell are totally committed to the mullet.”
Same, Andre, same.
These days, Agassi is still rocking the bald-head look, but when he walked the streets of Sydney in late 2023 to film his Uber One commercial promoting the benefits of Uber Membership, he felt blessed to witness the popularity of the mullet in today’s youth.
“I think it’s pretty cool that I’ve lived life long enough to see the mullet come back in style,” he says.
I couldn’t agree more. Long live the mullet!!!
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