The Great Ganesha

Although I already posted a tribute to Agassi after his exit from Wimbledon, I hope there won’t be much objection to another posting. Given his performance at the US Open, I think it is well-deserved.

Sunday saw the end of Agassi’s run in the US Open and in Grand Slam tennis. At the age of 36, he lost to B. Becker (ironically). No, it wasn’t Boris, but another German by the name of Benjamin. Those of us who were looking forward to seeing a Federer-Agassi final were devastated. So was Agassi: He was in tears after the match and, true to character, gave a very sentimental speech before leaving.

“The scoreboard said I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn’t say is what it is I have found. …

“Over the last 21 years, I have found you. And I will take you and the memory of you with me for the rest of my life.

“Thank you.” [link]

This was, as one of the fans’ posters said, “Agassi’s House.” Playing to consistently full stadiums, with the weight of the whole audience behind him, there were cheers when he won a point, and dead silence when he lost one. Both, his first and second round opponents [Pavel and Baghdatis, respectively] had to play in front of a very hostile audience.

His loss to Becker can be summed up in one word: Health. He had sciatica stemming from a slippage in one of his vertebra. This was, in fact, his reason for retiring. After one of the best matches in the entire tournament, his second round duel with Baghdatis, he collapsed in the parking lot of the stadium while leaving the game. It seems he used a DVD case as a pillow:

…after beating Marcos Baghdatis in a thrilling second-round match that ended early Friday morning, he collapsed in pain on his way out of the stadium and lay on the sidewalk with a case containing a freshly minted DVD of the match under his head for a pillow. [link]

Having already received two cortisone injections over the summer, one of which was just before his first match, he received more anti-inflammatory injections on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Despite all of that, he didn’t let us down, and the two matches that he played and won, were immensely enjoyable to watch in their own right.

His match against Baghdatis was undoubtedly a classic. But, to me, one of the more memorable moments of his US Open run was when McEnroe came out to interview him after that win. He asked how it was that whenever Agassi challenged the umpire’s call, the stadium would go up in cheers, and when McEnroe did it in his time, all he got were jeers. Agassi smiled and aswered without a thought: “That’s because you were always right, John!”

Of course, McEnroe is (unfortunately) remembered more for his outbursts on the stiff upper-lip Wimbledon court than anything else. He really was booed when he walked out on to the court at Wimbledon to play the final against Bjorn Borg. In fact, the BBC has one of his classic outbursts on audio [here]. Given all of that, Agassi’s response was classic.

He will be missed, and his era will be remembered fondly.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!