Andre Agassi admits long hairstyle was a wig

The tennis ace said he was so destracted by thoughts of the hairpiece falling off and causing him huge embarrassment during his first Grand Slam final that he lost the match.

Agassi made the confession about his locks, which won him a legion of female admirers, in his new autobiography, Open.

He said: "Every morning I would get up and find another piece of my identity on the pillow, in the wash basin, down the plughole.

"I asked myself: you want to wear a toupee? On the tennis court? I answered myself; what else could I do?"

He wore the wig for the French Open in 1990, the first time he had reached a Grand Slam final.

"Then a fiasco happened," he said. "The evening before the match I stood under the shower and felt my wig suddenly fall apart.

"Probably I used the wrong hair rinse. I panicked and called my brother Philly into the room.

"It’s a total disaster!" I said to him. He looked at it and said he could clamp it with hair clips.

"It took 20 clips. "Do you think it will hold?" I asked. "Just don’t move so much," he said.

"Of course I could have played without my hairpiece, but what would all the journalists have written if they knew that all the time I was really wearing a wig?

"During the warming-up training before play I prayed. Not for victory, but that my hairpiece would not fall off.

"With each leap, I imagine it falling into the sand. I imagine millions of spectators move closer to their TV sets, their eyes widening and, in dozens of dialects and languages, ask how Andre Agassi’s hair has fallen from his head.

It was Brooke Shields, who he married, who suggested he cut all his hair off.

"She said I should shave my head," he said. "It was like suggesting I should have all my teeth out.

"Nevertheless, I thought for a few days about it, about the agonies it caused me, the hypocrisy and lies."

After an 11-minute haircut, his appearance had changed dramatically.

"A stranger stood before me in the mirror and smiled," he said.