Andre the Giant

Andre Agassi has recently announced his retirement. He'll be closing his tennis career after the U.S. Open. It's 2006 and I've been watching Andre play since 1989. That's 17 years of Andre.

Andre's been around so long it's hard to remember what things were like when he started playing tennis. Let's rewind the clock back. For those who followed tennis in the 80s, one of the big names around was Nick Bollettieri. Bollettieri wasn't a tennis professional. His background, if I recall, was that of a paratrooper (though sometimes these bios are dubious). He did play tennis, did some coaching, and eventually opened his own tennis academy.

There were many players that went through his system. Perhaps the first two of note was Jimmy Arias and Aaron Krickstein. These two were about as different as could be. Arias was the outgoing New Yorker. Krickstein was the quiet kid from Michigan. They had several things in common and became the prototypical Bollettieri kids. Both had howitzer forehands, serviceable backhands, eh serves, and couldn't volley to save their lives. Arias's star burned a bit brighter, but shorter than Krickstein.

Arias played with the old Donnay Borg Pro, a standard sized racquet of 66 square inches. He played during the early 80s (about 1983 or so). The era of larger racquets was just coming about, and he never did quite get used to playing with a larger racquet, blaming his demise in the sport to a change in the technology that he couldn't deal with. Arias would play with a whippy backhand that made it look like his arm would fall off.

Krickstein's career lasted much longer, partly because he had compact strokes, and that his two-handed backhand was not as much of a liability.

Bollettieri would have plenty of other players that trained at his camp. Jim Courier, Mary Pierce, even Monica Seles (though Seles would credit her dad with most of her training).

Bollettieri was more of as motivational coach rather than a true X's and O's guy. He would rarely tinker with a player's stroke, which was perhaps partly his genius. He wanted players to swing away without abandon.

Critics often said he would never produce a world champion, that is players were too one-dimensional. All forehand, and not much else.

Then, came Agassi. Agassi was the best of the bunch. In those days, the benchmark for forehands was set by Ivan Lendl, who should have gone down as one of the best players ever, but ran into three players that were his undoing: McEnroe, Connors, and Becker, and mostly dealt with each in turn. Lendl was compared to Borg, but really, the two were quite different.

Borg was quiet, placid, relying on speed of foot, and heavily topspun shots to win. He was the best of breed from the late 70s, adorned with the look he helped popuralize. Fila clothings. Headbands. Wristbands. Borg was a machine. He could knock back shot after shot after shot. The women were playing a similar backboard style. Evert, Austin, Jaeger. Borg lead the baseliners of his era: Vilas, Clerc, Solomon.

Lendl was different. Though he started off quiet, Lendl saw what McEnroe did. Complain to officials. And it worked. And so Lendl complained. He used to spit up a storm too until it was decided that was far too gross for a leading player, and so he stopped doing that. Lendl used the full 30 seconds between points to rattle opponents, slowing down the pace as a form of irritation.

But he did as much for the modern style of tennis player as anyone. His was the standard when it came to power forehands. It was rare for players to whip winners from the baseline in those days. Connors could do it. At times, so could Vilas and Borg, though they mostly wore opponents down with their bullish style. Lendl could power shots down the line like no one else. Early in his career, Lendl was famous for gunning at players. After all, it wasn't against the rule to hit a player when trying to pass them, and it was hard to volley.

Lendl had one thing that Bollettieri's kids didn't. A serve. Lendl served with the best of them. He tossed his serve some ten feet high, timing his swing to the falling of the ball. Vic Braden would shake his head, preferring the quick Roscoe Tanner release to the moonshot of a toss that Lendl employed.

Agassi came much closer to the mold of Connors. Connors won without a good serve. It helped that he was a lefty, and the spin would come at the wrong angle, and so even his lefty hook was good enough to sneak in and volley sometimes. Connors relied on his ground strokes which were, until Lendl, the toughest out there, and even when Lendl was around, Connors flat strokes would counter Lendl's topspin shots until Lendl solved Connors, by playing off-pace shots, the Ashe approach, and essentially lull Connors into errors, as Connors was much better at redirecting pace than generating it on his own.

Agassi's serve was OK. He'd serve like he was playing doubles. Either far to the left or far to the right, using the angle to spin players out wide. He was the best returner of his generation. If he had had a monster serve, we'd be talking about Agassi, not Sampras, as the best.

Agassi eventually left Bollettieri. His most successful hookup was with Brad Gilbert, the ever talky coach who learned to win ugly. He had a great record against Becker, but could never quite beat Lendl. Gilbert learned how to play junk, to play the kind of shots that bothered better opponents. Arias would yell at himself in disgust wondering how Gilbert was beating him. Mary Carrillo coined the "winning ugly" phrase, and it stuck.

Gilbert helped Agassi play a lot smarter. Agassi would sometimes defeat himself. When Courier was at the top of his game, which lasted only a brief few years, he would outsteady Agassi. This was surprising. Courier was a bit of a hothead. A fanatic of baseball (loved Cincinnatti, but oh that Marge Schott). Courier had the same problems as Agassi, if not worse. He would get impatient, especially when he was losing, and would spray shots all over. Spaniard Jose Higueras (Higgy) who had married an American became Courier's coach, and taught him to calm down and harness his power.

Even so, people claimed Courier lacked real talent. He was an overachiever, winning even uglier, and that eventually the better players would win. And somehow, these so-called experts were right. For a player that played as well as Courier did, his sudden fall from great heights was awfully surprising. Chang didn't have nearly the career Courier did, and still lasted much longer. It was dubious whether Chang was that much better than Courier.

Once Agassi played smarter, he still had players that would give him trouble. Becker and Sampras topped the list. Sampras, especially, was supremely confident against Agassi. He knew Agassi felt a lot of pressure just to hold serve since Sampras felt that Agassi just couldn't break his serve, as good as Agassi was at return. And Sampras hit his groundstrokes just well enough that Agassi couldn't overpower him. In particular, Sampras was great at hitting winners on the run. Arguably, he was more dangerous fetching shots (especially on his forehand) than hitting a relaxed shot).

Agassi also had odd career dips where he'd just completely fade, have a year or so where he just played awful, so distracted, he'd fall out of the top 50. This happened at least twice in his career, but ironically enough, it may have lead to a prolonging of his career. The fragile Sampras retired because his body could no longer take the pounding of running on hard surfaces. He's unlikely to return because of that. Agassi, on the other hand, was more of a bull.

While Agassi still plays quite well, the new generation of players have their way with him. Federer dominates him as he does pretty much any player not named Nadal.

What was distinctive about early Agassi was his look. Remember he had long spiky hair? He looked like a reject from some glam metal band like some Bon Jovi. He wore bright neon clothing. He was marketed right away, and was trying to capture a crowd that didn't care for tennis.

I knew people who didn't know tennis, but knew Agassi. His hair. His look. He was not the prim and proper look of tennis. That drew attention. And he was good. Not Tiger Woods good, but good enough that early in his career, he was making semifinals of Grand Slams. He made the semis of the French and the US Open early on.

His name was a bit unusual. Son of a former Iranian boxer, Agassi grew up in Vegas, then trained in Florida with Nick. Like Sampras with his Greek heritage, Andre was evidence of a melting pot of Americans.

Over time, Agassi moved away from the look that made him famous. You could tell, from his brother Phil, that receding hairlines was strong with his family. When Agassi began shaving his head, you could see it too. But that was cool too. Here was a guy not ashamed he was going bald.

Will Agassi come back out of retirement? He's 36 years old. Connors played until he was 40 or so, but he was a bit lucky. When Connors retired, he still was perhaps in the top ten hard hitters in the game. His flat strokes were a bit of an anomaly compared to the topspin shots everyone hits now. Agassi could perhaps be more effective than Connors at his age. I wouldn't be surprised if he took potshots here and there just to see how he is doing, but full-time travelling? I doubt it.

So, Agassi, you were one of the guys that made tennis watching throughout the 90s. Hard to believe you've been at this sport nearly 20 years.

Thanks for the memories.