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CALLING SIGNALS |
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FUN RUN |
 ANDRE AGASSI |
Agassi checks out, leaving
fans missing him already
By BUCKY FOX
of TheColumnists.com
Andre Agassi's long
love match ends at the U.S. Open. Tennis fans hate to see him
go.
What will we miss?
His dogged hustle.
His quick toss and serve.
His wicked-spin backhand.
His winning skip.
His victory bows.
Not to mention his crunch-time triumphs, adding up to eight Grand
Slam trophies on the three surfaces of hard court, clay and grass.
He was only the second man after Jimmy Connors to do that.
What else do we recall? The headlines:
Agassi's Agony
Agassi And The Ecstacy
Agassi You Later
Andre has been a superstar so long, he has hardly any peers left.
Think about it. Who is left from his mane bash of 1988? Mostly
baseball players: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux. OK,
Randy Johnson, but he barely pitched 18 years ago. Then there's
hockey, where Scott Mellanby is still firing shots from the right
wing for the Atlanta Thrashers and Ed Belfour is in net for the
Florida Panthers, to name two of the rare three-decade guys.
Like his look back then, Agassi's women have been exotic: Barbra Streisand, Brooke Shields, Steffi Graf.
Same with his matches--always fun to watch.
Here are my favorites:
*
1989 Davis Cup semifinals. Agassi faced Boris Becker when the
German stood tallest, coming off a Wimbledon title and about
to win the U.S. Open. And this was in Munich. The 5-11 Las Vegan
looked like Andre the giant killer after winning the first two
tiebreakers. Eventually he lost in five sets. You don't hear
much about this match, but it might have been his most courageous
battle.
* 1990 French Open first round. The first time I caught Agassi's act in person. And it was a doozy. The wild kid came in favored to dominate Roland Garros. Yet here was this Canadian with a German no-name, Martin Wostenholme, winning the first set. Agassi was so ticked, he smashed his Donnay racket. The packed Parisians pushed him with their "AgaSEE" calls, and Andre pulled out a four-set triumph.
* 1990 ATP Finals. Agassi overcame No. 1 Stefan Edberg in four sets for his first big-time title. Frankfurt’s jammed Festhalle loved it.
* 1991 French Open final. Agassi led Jim Courier two sets to one and looked like a lock. A rain delayed rusted that idea. Agassi missed a crucial overhead in this collapse. Probably his toughest loss.
*
1992 Wimbledon final. One word for this one: Wow!. Talk about
a show: Agassi the Returner vs. Goran Ivanisevic the Server.
Andre prevailed in five sets for his first Slam title. His secret?
He never lost his serve.
*
1999 French Open final. A comeback for the ages. Andre's namesake
with an i, Andrei Medvedev, cruised to a 6-1, 6-2 lead. Agassi
looked like a sure title-match deadbeat in Paris for the third
time. Then he started hammering shots and nailed the Ukrainian.
The stunner came a day after Graf won her 22nd Grand Slam title.
The next month she would be retired, dating Agassi and headed
for a 30-Slam marriage.
* 2001 U.S. Open quarterfinals. As close as four sets can get. All had tiebreakers, and Pete Sampras won again. He had the edge in this great rivalry because of one more weapon: a smokin’ serve.
* 2005 U.S. Open quarterfinals. Another all-Yankee dandy. This time Agassi rebounded from two sets down to beat James Blake in a fifth-set tiebreaker 8-6.
How did Agassi keep ticking timelessly? Conditioning. The man's a rock at 36.
I was amazed at how trim he looked during the Los Angeles tournament in July. On the night I saw him, he wound up Swiss George Bastl like a clock.
Weigh that against the other big American summer draw to L.A.: Serena Williams. When she lumbered out in an outfit four sizes too small, she showed legs that would barely fit into a tennis bag. The lady is fat. That's exactly why she won't reclaim her dynastic spot. Her run lasted seven years.
Agassi acts as young as he looks. When asked after that match in L.A. how he would rate his opponents, he didn’t look back. He lauded today’s gang: Roger Federer with the best shot ever, Rafael Nadal for his quickness and mental toughness, Marat Safin and David Nalbandian with the top two-fisted backhands, Guga Kuerten and Tommy Haas for their single-wing backhands.
Andre Agassi is all about now. We’ll never forget him.
©2006 by Bucky Fox. The photo of Andre Agassi is an artist's version of a standard publicity photo. This column first posted Sept. 4, 2006.
You can visit Bucky
Fox's website at www.BuckyFox.com
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can comment on this column online. Please address your message
to either "The Editors" or Bucky Fox. To send an email,
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