Andre Hangs 'Em Up

Andre Agassi broke onto the tennis scene as a 17 year old "haircut with a forehand" in the words of Ivan Lendl. Now, as a mature man of 35 with a shaved head, a geezer's bad back, and 4 Grand Slams to his eternal credit, Andre has announced that he will retire after the United States Open in late August. They say that you can play tennis if you have one big weapon. Boy, did Andre Agassi have one. I say this without hesitation or fear of contradiction: nobody ever crushed a forehand like Andre Agassi. Courier and Lendl were close. And from what I hear Rocket Rod Laver could crank it and judging from his Popeye-like forearms, I could not disagree. But the Agassi forehand was a full time WMD as well. And he didn't hit his with a woodie.

That is not to say he was a one trick pony along the lines of say, a Roscoe Tanner or, apparently, an Andy Roddick. For one thing, he could play defense. In the eyes of many, Andre Agassi and Jimmy Conners are considered to be the best returners of serve in the history of the game. Conners got everything back. He considered it a matter of personal pride not to get aced. Andre could give a shit. Indeed, he won Wimbledon despite getting aced by mega-headcase Goran Ivanisevic 27 times. He got just enough of Goran's first serves back and all of his second serves until Goran eventually self-immolated. He has attributed his success at returning to his vision which is augmented by his fast hands. Indeed, Andre has remarked in the past that he thought he would have been a good baseball player for this reason. I can see that.

He was as close to an "all-courts" player as we have seen in the modern era. He won 8 Majors on all 3 surfaces. Unlike Lendl, who claimed to be allergic to grass despite being an avid golfer and equally unlike his fellow Bolletieri alumnus Jim Courier, Andre could volley a little. Unlike Michael Chang, his serve had depth and bite for a smaller man. Unlike his main rival Pete Sampras, he could play on clay. Unlike, Jimmy Connors and John Peter McEnroe, Andre was never thought of as a jerk by his peers despite the outlandish behavior of his younger days. That honor went to the sanctimonious and clannish Michael Chang.

But mainly what Andre Agassi had was a set of cast-iron cajones. Coming off surgery in 1993, he became the first unseeded player to win the US Open. By 1997, his inattention to conditioning and numerous injuries (not to mention the distraction of a tumultuous marriage to the high-strung Brooke Shields) caused him to drop to drop off the tennis radar screen. By then, his ranking had sunk to 141 and he was reduced to playing the challenger circuit to get back to the ATP tour. After a year of diet and conditioning, Andre did what most people thought was impossible. He came back to the bigs. And in 1999, he became the first man in history to win a French Open after falling behind 2 sets to love, a feat he accomplished against Andre Medvedev who was a hellacious clay court player.

Cajones.

But cajones can only take you so far. They allowed him to take a set from Roger Federer at last year's US Open. But by the 4th set he had the look of a beaten man. Cajones won't let you play on clay with sciatica. So he skipped the French last month. And they alone won't help him win either Wimbledon or the US Open this year either. Mainly because Roger Federer is not beatable on grass or hard.

What the hell. Now is as good a time as any to get out. He has nothing left to prove to anybody. He won over 300 million dollars in prize money. He has the Agassi Charitable Foundation and the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy to look after. He is married to Steffi Graf. Maybe you have heard of her. They have two kids. He has a pretty good life in front of him.

If you have a chance to watch any tennis in the next couple of months, look for the bald guy with the boxer's build and the tight-assed, pigeon-toed gait of a running back. And raise a glass to the old man.

Because you will not soon see the likes of him again.