In his new autobiography, former tennis star Andre Agassi admits the lion mane-hairstyle he sported during the 1990s was actually a wig used to shield his baldness. Agassi said he wore a hairpiece held together with pins in his first Grand Slam final, the 1990 French Open final, and blames his concerns that it would fall apart for losing the match to Andres Gomez.

Before the match he prayed “not for victory, but that my hairpiece would not fall off”, he writes in 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 writes. “I asked myself: you want to wear a toupee? On the tennis court? I answered myself; what else could I do?”

But the wig began to disintegrate as he took a shower the night before the Paris final — “probably I used the wrong hair rinse,” Agassi, now 39, continues.

“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.”

He says, “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.”

Agassi won eight Grand Slams induring his career and is one of only six men to win all four major titles.