Agassi's Open Memoir Powers Two Major TV Adaptations

Prime Video gave a series order to Rally, a young adult tennis drama with Andre Agassi as executive producer, on 16 October 2026, as reported by Deadline. The development arrives less than a year after Apple TV+ announced its own multi-part documentary on Agassi's life, returning sustained industry attention to the tennis legend's remarkable screen potential.

The twin commissions mean Agassi's story — long regarded as among the most compelling in modern sport — is simultaneously being developed across two of the world's most competitive streaming platforms. That is an unusual position for any sports autobiography to occupy, let alone one published in 2009.

Open: An Autobiography, written by Agassi with co-writer J. R. Moehringer and published on 9 November 2009, is the candid account of an eight-time Grand Slam champion who, by his own admission, spent much of his career trying to escape the sport that defined him. The book reached number one on the New York Times Best Seller list despite — or perhaps because of — its unflinching honesty, including Agassi's admission to methamphetamine use in 1997.

As EssentiallySports notes, Agassi declared in Open that winning had never guaranteed happiness — a provocative claim from a former world number one that gave the book its lasting psychological weight. It is precisely that tension between outward triumph and inner conflict that makes the material so adaptable to screen drama.

The Apple TV+ documentary was announced on 13 January 2026, sixteen years after the memoir's publication, according to EssentiallySports. The project is being executive produced by Agassi's business partner Justin Gimelstob, who is also attached to Rally on Prime Video, as Geektown reports.

Variety reports that Julie Plec — whose showrunning credits include We Were Liars for Prime Video — will executive produce Rally alongside Agassi, Gimelstob, and Guymon Casady of Entertainment 360. The production is a joint venture with Amazon MGM Studios.

Rally is described as a drama set in elite junior tennis, exploring the sacrifices demanded of young players chasing professional careers. As Yardbarker observes, Agassi carries direct first-hand experience into the project — a producer whose own childhood was shaped by the grinding realities of a tennis academy.

The Ankler notes the series is built around the idea that tennis is "the loneliest sport in the world", demanding that players sacrifice the very relationships that give winning its meaning. That thematic DNA maps directly onto the existential questions Agassi wrestled with throughout Open.

The timing is commercially astute. Tennis has enjoyed a prolonged moment of mainstream cultural visibility following the success of the 2024 film Challengers, which Wikipedia notes was itself inspired by Open.

Rally enters a market that has already demonstrated appetite for morally complex tennis narratives aimed at younger audiences.

For Plec, the series represents a return to Prime Video after We Were Liars, a pairing that gives Rally both a proven streaming home and a showrunner with demonstrated YA credentials, as The Wrap confirms. For Agassi, it marks a significant career transition — from subject of the story to architect of it.

The convergence of Rally and the Apple TV+ documentary underscores how durably Agassi's autobiography has shaped his public legacy. Open remains one of the most psychologically honest sports memoirs published in the last two decades — for LuvemBooks' full verdict on the book itself, read our review.