(Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images).
Agassi’s balls look more like (Bjorn) Borg’s balls would have looked if Borg had been on a yearlong regimen of both steroids and methamphetamines and was hitting every single f***ing ball just as hard as he could. Agassi hits his ground strokes as hard as anybody who’s ever played tennis – so hard you almost can’t believe it in person. -David Foster Wallace, “The String Theory”
Anyone who has read the essay from which that quote originated knows that Wallace was not a fan of Andre Agassi.
He loathed his wardrobe, his personality, and even his game, which he compared to a film of the Soviet Russian army subduing dissidents in an Eastern European satellite.
In fact, when grouped with what he said in “Roger Federer as Religious Experience” regarding Rafael Nadal (“unsleeved biceps and Kabuki self-exhortations,” anyone?) it was clear Wallace didn’t have a high regard for power baseliners in general.
He recognized talent in the native Las Vegan, though. Even those who loathed the long hair and flashy clothes of his early years, or the pirate rag of his mid-'90s resurgence all noticed his innate feel for the game: He took the ball earlier and hit with more consistent pace than anyone ever had, and returned serve even better than Jimmy Connors, whose returns revolutionized tennis in the ‘70s.
These attributes, combined with his…unconventional fashion sense drew numerous new observers to the game, but concerned many a tennis purist (like Wallace) that their refined, cultured game was under siege from a hard-hitting Hun in Nikes.
They were saved from seeing him in the winner’s circle too often, however, firstly by his own suspect discipline and secondly by the competition he faced: First in 1990 and then in ‘95, he reached the final of the US Open, only to meet the purists’ standard bearer in Pete Sampras, the most complete player of his generation.
In both cases, the defeats he suffered stole his momentum and, particularly in ’95, were so discouraging as to exacerbate his dedication deficiency.
Though it took longer to reach fulfillment than his supporters would’ve liked, Agassi’s undeniable ball-striking ability remained, ready for the day he chose to put it to use.
That day arrived when he won the 1999 Roland Garros, completing his collection of Grand Slam titles and helping him back to the No. 1 ranking. In his 30s, he remained a contender at the majors, eventually accumulating eight of them.
And it was his last, the 2003 Australian Open, that displayed the American legend in his most dominant form, despite his being just shy of 33.
This was partly because Agassi had solved his self-discipline issues: At this point, Double-A was no longer the skinny kid in denim shorts who bragged about eating cheeseburgers, but a grown man who could bench press somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 pounds and who spent the off-season running up hills to prepare him for the AO.
The other factor was the competition: Sampras, having won the ’02 US Open just months earlier, was unofficially retired.
Most of those who remained were now, like Agassi, power baseliners who hit harder than previous generations, but lacked the American’s unprecedented vision and reaction time.
Still, it took him some time to work his way into form in that event, as he labored through the first round against 93rd-ranked Brian Vahaly in a match that was over in straights, but by the hardly dominant scoreline of 7-5, 6-3, 6-3.
If a Vahaly had pushed him, his second-round opponent, South Korea’s Hyung-taik Lee, appeared a genuine threat. Lee had just won his first career title in Sydney a few days earlier, beating Andy Roddick and Juan Carlos Ferrero (both of whom would win majors that year) along the way.
When Lee used his fleet feet and smooth one-handed backhand to win his opening service game and then pressure Agassi’s serve, it appeared that Double-A had a long day ahead of him. However, after holding, he proceeded to break Lee, and then did so twice more to win the first set, 6-1.
A 23-year-old grad student at the time, I was following the score online, finding it considerably more interesting than the musings of the Romantic Era poets I was studying.
Still, the thought of a stern lecture from an erudite English professor and the idea that I might be wasting the considerable sum I’d used to enroll eventually forced my attention back to the books, at least until my required reading was finished.
54 Comments
Loading more comments...
This comment and all replies have been deleted This comment has been deleted Undo delete