Andre the Giant

Since I have already written a post detailing my feelings about Andre Agassi... I didn't feel like I needed to write another one saying the exact same things in honor of his retirement. This week I have read many different articles covering his last match... I wanted to share the following article which I thought was the best of all that I read: I will write a post this week about several sporting topics... but until then... enjoy this article, it's pretty dang good:


Las Vegas Review - Journal

Before all the cortisone and anti-inflammatory needles, before his body finally refused to run through that brick wall of pain another day, before the flame was blown out by a qualifier ranked No. 112, before the tears began flowing, before the standing ovation that lasted long enough to blister the hands and feet of thousands, Andre Agassi spoke about survival.

"The great part about tennis," Agassi once said, "is that you can't run out the clock. As long as we're still playing, I had a chance."

The clock has run out. The final two-handed backhand has been whacked.

Tennis has lost its ultimate baseline giant.

The debate will begin in earnest now, the discussion of where to place Agassi within the game's history. That's what people do when someone of such immense talent retires from the sporting world, a decision made official Sunday when a weary, wincing and wounded Agassi lost his third-round match of the U.S. Open in four sets to Benjamin Becker.

Different eras are incredibly difficult to compare given the strength of today's athlete and the technical improvements of equipment. Rod Laver swung a chunk of wood in a time when skill was still the most valuable advantage. Roger Federer swings a graphite/ aluminum missile in a time when power has allowed little room for a variety of styles. That's another reason Agassi's star will always shine brightly upon the sport. He wasn't like everyone else. Like anyone, for that matter.

He returned serve like Ted Williams hit a baseball, with better timing and balance and hand-eye coordination than anyone in his sport's history. His game was old-school enough to grind away 60 tournament titles and eight Grand Slams from the baseline and flamboyant enough to leave a lasting impact for so many children that tennis is a pretty cool sport to take up.

In the end, leave it as such: Agassi (one of five players to win a career Grand Slam) sits comfortably at the same banquet table as Laver and Federer and Pete Sampras and Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors and Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe. Not as talented as a few of them and better than others.

In the end, what matters is not Agassi's exact placement among peers but rather how he achieved such a supreme position. His was a fascinating journey that rivaled Columbus for discovery, one of such extraordinary highs and lows that no specific ranking could do justice.

Brad Gilbert wrote a first-person story this week for the London Times and in it Agassi's former coach described a scene before a 1994 tournament final against Sampras in Key Biscayne, Fla.

When Gilbert and Agassi arrived, Sampras was terribly sick to the point he was lying in a locker room with an IV drip in his arm. Gilbert assumed Sampras wouldn't make the start and Agassi would be declared the winner.

But then Agassi asked those with Sampras how long the player needed to recover, was told five-to-six hours and then requested of tournament officials to delay the match.

Five hours later, Sampras took the court and beat Agassi in three sets.

"Andre wasn't annoyed in the slightest," Gilbert wrote. "He said, 'I came here to see how I am against the best. I wanted to know where I'm at and now I know.' To me that marked him out as someone very special."

To me, it embodies all that will be missed.

Forget all the stories about Agassi arriving to the game with long hair and denim shorts and neon shirts and an impetuous attitude. Forget about the brashness. He was a teenager back then, which by its very definition suggests a species prone to intolerable and inexplicable behavior.

Don't forget he epitomized a sporting spirit we desire athletes of his stature to own but few ever do, that a major reason he departs as the most beloved player in American tennis history is for the respect he grew to possess over time about the game he obviously loved. He transcended the sport not only for how he matured off the court, but mostly for how he played on it.

The clock stopped ticking Sunday and when it did thousands rose to their feet and began applauding for more than eight minutes. Shortly after, Agassi hobbled into a locker room, where fellow players also stood and cheered. Shortly after, he rose to depart a news conference and gathered media took to their feet and began clapping. If that doesn't tell you where Andre Agassi fits among the greats, nothing will.

In the end, leave it as such: No one had a bigger impact on tennis than Agassi, a chameleon who by transforming his image became one of the greatest philanthropists and champions of needy children sports has known.

And we're supposed to assign him some subjective all-time ranking?

Please. He rose above that debate a long time ago.

(c) 2006 Las Vegas Review - Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.