Oh Say Can You Agassi

Andre Agassi had announced the US Open would be his last tournament. Afterwards, he'd head into retirement. It was only fitting his last match would be against B. Becker.

Well, not that B. Becker. This Becker was Benjamin Becker, no relation to Boris, never even met the guy. Indeed, at a ripe old age of 25, this Becker didn't burst on the scene by winning Wimbledon at 17. However, he did do one thing that neither Becker nor Agassi did.

Benjamin Becker shares a distinction with Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, and Mikael Pernfors. He's won the NCAA Championships in tennis. In 2004, he won it all. Becker is indeed German, and presumably was an older student (he would have been 23 when he won it, possibly 22).

The college route is not a typical route for top American champions. Prodigies in tennis mature early, often in high school, and skip college. John McEnroe only stayed at Stanford one year. Connors, if memory serves, only stayed three years. Unlike college basketball, college tennis attracts the non-prodigies, the anti-Agassis. Those, like fine wine, that take longer to develop. Alas, this route usually means lack of success. Aside from a player like Thomas Muster, there are only a handful of players who player really well in their elder years from nowhere. Most talented players show their talent early.

This includes the crop of good American players that ended with Agassi. Sampras, Chang, Courier, Wheaton. Some players did the college thing. Malivai Washington. Todd Martin. It's not awful to go that route, and one can still do quite well on the tour, provided your goal is not to reach the pinnacle of the sport.

When all is said and done, people may look back at Agassi's stellar career and wonder if he could have done more. At least twice in his career, he let his skills decline so badly, that his rankings dipped, and people wondered what happened to him. His summer has been lackluster, primarily due to a back injury. He had been losing early in tournaments throughout the summer, saving himself up for one last glorious stand at the Open.

While Agassi's name and the US Open aren't as inextricably linked as Connors and the Open, fans have embraced Agassi. If anything, he's hung in there an awfully long time. I remember watching him play in 1988, a match against Lendl, at the time, perhaps the hardest hitting player this side of Becker and Connors, and this punk kid, dressed in neon, like some reject from a glam metal big hair band was clocking the ball.

In hindsight, those images show a kind of grooming for the public that's honestly never been seen since. Sure, people had hoped Tiger Woods would do as well as he's done. Nike spent major dollars to sign Tiger, when the only significant blip on his resume was three time NCAA golf champion--nothing to sneeze at, but no guarantee of a career that might leave Niklaus, and the rest of the golf field in the dust. Yet, Tiger is only flashy with his game. He's not Muhammad Ali. He's not out protesting. He plays his game and wins. No wild hair. No flashy lifestyle.

Not so with Agassi. Agassi brought a new face to tennis. His dad was an Olympic boxer from Iran. Like many tennis parents, he wanted success for his son, and like many tennis parents, this relationship wasn't always smooth. Imagine less than ten years after the hostages, when those with Iranian blood would call themselves Persians, distancing themselves from the regime and from home grown prejudice.

Oh but Agassi could claim another heritage, for he's not Iranian, but Armenian. You see, it's not Agassi, but Agassian. For those unfamiliar with Armenian surnames, practically every Armenian's last name ends in "ian" or "yan".

No matter. Most people didn't flinch with Agassi's unusual last name. People who didn't care about tennis at least heard of Agassi. Even as a youth, he was as polished in front of the camera as he is today. Listen to his interviews, and they sound far better than star du jour, Rafael Nadal, whose "for sures" echo reticent Swede, Bjorn Borg.

He started, much like Connors, as the brash kid, but when he stripped off his neon, his longish hair, for the plainer, shaved look he sports now, people liked him more. In tennis, where there are no teams, it's the players that win for years that people want to follow, and Agassi's been around nearly twenty years.

In a sense, Agassi's win over Baghdatis was his US Open. Baghdatis was eighth seed, and given Agassi's health, he should have been too much. Even with Agassi up two sets to none, Baghdatis clawed back, and Agassi found himself in a place he didn't want to be. In a fifth set. He dug in and pulled out a win. And due to a rain delay that washed out most of the Saturday schedule, Agassi had one more day's rest.

Alas, it was not enough. Agassi's serve was inconsistent. At one point, Becker was slashing returns for winners, with Agassi watching the balls go by, the pain too great to track down. Still, he managed to squeak out a second set win, and had chances to win the third set. Even had that happened, it was doubtful he could pull off another set. If it weren't for Becker also playing unevenly, missing points, almost as if he didn't want to crush Agassi, the match wouldn't have been as close as it ended up being.

Agassi can look at the career of his rivals. Courier surged for about three years, and then faded, his power game seemingly too predictable. Sampras seemed to defeat Agassi whenever they met, no matter how hot Agassi was playing, or how poorly Sampras had been playing. He'd come into a US Open without much of a prayer, with Agassi playing as well as he'd played, and come out a winner, and then retire on top. Chang also retired, injuries plaguing him as well.

Agassi stayed around, still playing good enough tennis last year to make semifinals of Grand Slam events, but unable to deal with the best of the best. He wasn't ready to beat Federer, and Nadal had made things tough for the rest.

Agassi, much like Connors, had a game that was fit for the new millenium. He hit as hard as the best players, but the rest of the field had caught up. Watching the Chang-Edberg fourth round match, you feel the play is in slow motion. Chang and Edberg would trade shots down the middle, while current players not only hit harder, but deeper.

Agassi's retirement coincides with the second retirement of Navratilova. Long since irrelevant in singles play, Navratilova keeps hanging in there, playing doubles and mixed, still seeking another Wimbledon win, still seeking another Grand Slam title. She used the US Open as a forum to complain about modern racquets which have made serve and volley nearly obsolete. Even the best players, like Federer, don't want to come to net given how good everyone passes these days.

People may conclude Sampras was the better player, or maybe even Becker, but perhaps no one exudes as much charisma as Agassi, partly because he, more than any other player of his generation, knew how to talk to the media. He was grateful to the fans. He was friendly. Yeah, some people say that it was something of a show, and possibly less than honest, but tennis personalities don't have the kind of drama that basketball and football stars have. People can remember Agassi as that brash kid, son of an immigrant, heir to the legacy of Lendl, and a player that stuck it out for nearly twenty years.

Now he can be daddy, and husband to Steffi, and look at the next step in his life. He can hope players like Roddick and Blake are ready to take the mantle of tennis greatness, though perhaps we'll have to wait a bit, much like tennis was wondering where the next great Americans were coming from in the mid 80s.

So Andre Agassi, here's to retirement. It's too bad that it had to end in pain, in a loss to Becker, but you fought, handled it with class, and left the game as beloved as anyone whose ever played.