Apple Serves Up Andre Agassi Docuseries From Director Chris Smith

EXCLUSIVE: The complicated life and sporting career of tennis legend Andre Agassi is set to be explored in a multi-part docuseries for Apple.

Chris Smith, who has directed documentaries including Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, Wham! and Devo, is to direct after the streamer greenlit the series.

It emerged last year that Apple was in talks to make an Agassi project and Smith’s Library Films, which produced Netflix’s Tiger King docuseries, will now produce the project.

Justin Gimelstob, a former tennis pro and friend of Agassi’s, who played against him a number of times on the world tour, will exec produce the project alongside Stacy Smith, who has worked on HBO’s 100 Foot Wave and Netflix’s Mr. McMahon.

Agassi is widely considered one of the greatest tennis player of his generation; he is one of only eight men to complete a Career Grand Slam – winning all four major titles over the course of their career – and one of only three men to complete a Career Golden Slam – winning all four major titles and an Olympic gold medal. He won 60 ATP Tour-level singles titles including eight majors. The teenage phenom broke through when he won Wimbledon in 1992.

Agassi’s book Open, which was written with J.R. Moehringer and published in 2009, is also one of the greatest sports memoirs. In it, he revealed details about his challenging childhood with his father Mike pushing him hard at an early age, before he was sent to Nick Bollettieri’s Tennis Academy in Florida at the age of 13.

The stone-washed denim clad star, who also wore Hot Lava bicycle shorts, revealed that he actually hated tennis as a result of his grueling childhood and his infamous long hair was actually a hairpiece that disintegrated in the shower before the final of the French Open.

After his early success, his career stalled in the mid-‘90s with Agassi revealing in the book that he used crystal meth during this time period, which also coincided with the end of his marriage to Hollywood star Brooke Shields.

However, his career rebounded in the late-‘90s when he came back from two sets down to beat Andrei Medvedev in the French Open final, completing the slam, and he went on to win another U.S. Open. He retired in 2006 at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York and received a long standing ovation.

This came after his second marriage, to former tennis star Steffi Graf, with whom he has two children.

The docuseries is the latest Agassi-related tennis project for television. Last year, Deadline reported that are developing scripted series Rally at Amazon with Julie Plec attached to serve as showrunner. The series, which is set at a hyper-competitive elite tennis academy, comes from Universal Television and Entertainment360.