| A tale of two legends Nirmal Shekar, The Sportstar August 25, 2001 "In my dreams, Jack, you always win." - Lee Trevino. QUITE the most amazing part of witnessing events of deep historic significance is the fact that as long as you live, you tend to remember even the minutest of details concerning them. It is almost as if you have suddenly been transported to an exalted realm and your faculties have momentarily acquired Einsteinesque scope. In the event, every little thing about that Monday afternoon on the Centre Court at Wimbledon is lodged in memory and every tiny, often irrelevant detail has been stored away. History was peeping in from behind the forest green backdrop on the most famous tennis court in the world on that day with the clock ticking to 6.17 p.m. A tired Pete Sampras had just volleyed the ball into the net on the second point in the 12th game of the fifth set on serve against Roger Federer. The score: 0-30. "Come on, Pete. You can do it," ventured a young voice as the great man walked back to the baseline, wiping the sweat off his forehead in idiosyncratic fashion, with the arched forefinger of his left hand. In a corner of the court, as if in a trance, a statuesque ballgirl was staring intently at Sampras, oblivious to the balls being rolled towards her by a ballboy near the netpost. Perhaps, young as she was, the girl had realised the stupendous significance of the moment and her own duty seemed irrelevant. A little more than a minute later, as Sampras tossed the ball up to serve at 15-40, Lee Trevino's words about the peerless Jack Nicklaus crossed my mind. And I said to myself: Even in my worst nightmares, Pete, you never lose on the Centre Court at Wimbledon. Well, for both Pete Sampras, and all those - including this writer - who believed that the aura of invincibility surrounding the great champion at Wimbledon cannot possibly be swept away by a teenaged aspirant in a fourth round contest, through those moments of unreasonable pathos, a lesson in sporting mortality was on offer on that Monday. As obvious as Sampras's decline had been through three rounds of tennis during the first week of the 2001 championships, the sheer weight of history - the memories of the seven championships he had won in eight years - made it impossible to believe that the great man would meet with failure on the very court he had ruled for so long with almost God-like powers. Only two years earlier, in the summer of 1999, on the very court where the 19-year old Federer stripped him of his crown, Sampras had played a brand of tennis that no player - alive or dead - may have ever matched on a grass court. That was in the final of 1999 against Andre Agassi. Often, when one great champion beats another 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 in a Grand Slam final, it means that one of them was at his very best and the other was nowhere near his best. But, believe me, on that day Agassi was at his very best. He was playing even better than he did in beating Goran Ivanisevic in five sets for his first Grand Slam title on the same court in 1992. Yet, Sampras made him look pedestrian. This was not just a case of a great champion getting into what the players call the zone. For, on that day, Sampras was in the sort of zone that no man had ever climbed to before and no man will ever ascend to in the foreseeable future. It was the glorious memory of the transcendental brilliance of Sampras's tennis in the 1999 final that made it impossible to believe, two years on, that the great man's powers were at last waning, that he was no longer the tyrannical champion that he was for so long on the famous lawns. Sport is a strange business. It is as much a vehicle of dreams as it is a purveyor of nightmares. Summit and abyss are next door neighbours, so to say. But when you have watched a great performer dominate a stage like Sampras did at Wimbledon, for all the lessons of a lifetime spent in the capricious business of sport, you tend to distance yourself - just that bit - from reality. Then again, the first law of sport is this: every champion that ever lived is vincible. There is no such thing as an invincible champion. The greatest, men like Sampras, are what they are simply because they offer us the illusion that they may be invincible for a long time... until they actually turn out to be vincible. "When I am playing well, there's nobody I can't beat. Week in and week out, it does get tougher, but when I'm on, it's tough for guys to beat me," Sampras said a week before Wimbledon last June. The point is, the great man has not been "on" for a good part of a year now. And he blew 30 candles on his birthday cake last fortnight, on August 12 to be precise. He is married, has talked about "reining in a little" and having realised "as you get older that there are cons as well as pros to this life." So, where does that leave him now? He has won more Grand Slam titles than any player in history (13), has finished No. 1 a record six years in a row and has not won a tournament since beating Pat Rafter in the gloaming to win his seventh Wimbledon title last year. This apart, at Wimbledon this year, it was clear that Sampras's game was not what it used to be. The speed of eye and the swiftness of foot, allied with the big serve and the impeccable volleys that saw him crush opponent after opponent on the lawns are no longer the virtues they used to be... for the great man is a step slower and has lost a shade of power on his serves and groundstrokes. Sure signs of ageing? Of course, athletic skills plummet fast and far and at 30, Sampras can hardly expect to be at his best. Is that what you are thinking? But what of his arch-rival Andre Agassi? A year older, Agassi is playing some of the finest tennis of his career. Having won his third Australian Open in January, Agassi goes into the U.S. Open as one of a handful of hot favourites. Indeed, Sampras and Agassi, as they have done in many aspects of their games, their personalities and their careers, present a fascinating contrast when it comes to success in the twilight phase. After slipping to No. 146 late in 1997, Agassi has authored a comeback that few would have believed, at that time, the flashy Las Vegan was capable of enacting. Of his seven Grand Slam singles titles, Agassi has won four past the age of 29! On the other hand, every one of Sampras's 13 Grand Slam titles was won before he turned 29. To get to the point straight, these are two entirely different personalities and careers and one cannot imagine Sampras slipping that far and then working his way back to the top at this stage in his life. Agassi, for all his gifts, has always had to work hard for rewards on the big stage. And, given the breaks he had experienced in his roller coaster career, until 1997, he was hardly under the threat of burnout. Working with Brad Gilbert, a great motivator, Agassi, who enjoys the grind of training and practice, clawed his way back tenaciously... a remarkable effort which has paid off wonderfully. Sampras, on the other hand, has never had a long break in his career since the time he announced himself as a world-beater at age 19, winning the 1990 U.S. Open. In contrast to Agassi, Sampras, supremely gifted, has not had to put in too much effort. If the first sign of greatness is the effortlessness with which great things are achieved, then there has been no greater champion than Sampras in the Open Era. If Agassi is the Elvis Presley of tennis, then Sampras is the game's Mozart. The great man has never been one to spend too much time on the practice courts - injured, he won Wimbledon 2000 without ever touching his racquet between matches - ever since his first famous coach, Dr. Pete Fischer told him, "You are Pete Sampras. You shouldn't bother who's on the other side of the net." Those words triggered a wave of self-confidence which has swept the man who is, arguably, the best player to pick up a tennis racquet, to stunning levels of excellence that may never be matched in the near future. It is precisely because of this it is hard to imagine that Sampras would hang around for too long if his game doesn't reach its customary altitude soon. While the need to leave an enduring mark on the sport is no longer a pressing one, the fact is continuous failure would be a big blow to the great man's pride. Bjorn Borg quit the game when he slipped to No. 2 - it's another matter that it was a decision he lived to regret and attempted an unsuccessful comeback much later - in 1981 but another champion of that era, Ilie Nastase, 10 years after slipping from No. 1, profanely landed at tournament venues on Sundays, lost on Mondays and then ended up in discos, his greatness a distant memory, his name no longer in marquee company. Frankly, I don't see this happening to Sampras, although he's not someone who'd run away in a hurry on impulse, like Borg did. For, he still loves the sport and that is the only reason why he is still playing. For, unlike Agassi - a born showman - Sampras is not in love with celebrity status. If fame is a drug that's turned many a great champion into a pathetic parody of his winning self, then Sampras has never been an addict. And he never will be. How long more he will play is something that not even the great man himself knows right now. Nor indeed do we know how rewarding the rest of his career might be. For Time has eroded his skills. But this much is sure: Sampras's records might fall some time, as indeed all records in sport do, but his greatness is something that cannot be touched by Time. It is rust-proof. __________________________________________________________________________________________ Sampras-Agassi: journey to legend Rohit Brijnath, The Sportstar September 21, 2002 THEY began this year's US Open final under the sun and they finished under the lights, and if anything it represented the long journey they had taken to this point. Agassi had lost his hair, Pete was losing his. One had a baby, the other on the cusp of fatherhood. Agassi initially was flat, Pete eventually fighting fatigue. Old masters producing a flawed masterpiece, coloured more by emotion than skill, their lines less surer but still beautiful, their tennis an echo of greatness than pure greatness itself. It didn't matter. They were owed this moment, they deserved it. You almost expected a bugler to rise in the stands and play the last post. It was, perhaps, one last reminder to the generations whose hopes they had stilled by winning 21 Grand Slams together, and one last benchmark to challenge the future with. It was, maybe, one last reminder of tennis' singular stroke of genius, the Sampras serve, a shot of simplicity designed for havoc. A serve whose signature was a pockmark, a speed-gun number, and the glazed look of an opponent who looked like he'd walked alive from a minefield. And it was, possibly, one last reminder of a rivalry that began when Pete was 9 and Agassi 10, when both played from the baseline, and Agassi won easily, a duel, or was it a duet, that was in fact an expression of the complete art of tennis. The seamless Sampras serve matched only by the Agassi return, which brought Newton's Third Law of an "equal and opposite reaction" to mind. Pete's hissing cross court forehand on the run equalled only in elegance and effect by Agassi's rifled backhand down the line. Agassi's curled lob of impeccable deceit, countered only by Sampras's gravity-defying overhead. Sampras bent at the net fashioning volleys of cotton-wool softness and spring-loaded power, Agassi at the baseline, manufacturing passing shots on full pigeon-toed run, his racket flashing so fast by his hip that Wyatt Earp would never have had a chance Of course, they brought out the best in each other. They were made for each other. But these distinctive but embracing styles extended beyond mere strokes, for when you threw their personalities into the brew, it only enriched the flavour. The ever-changing Agassi, moving from multi-coloured-haired, denim-shorted punk to shaven-chested aerodynamic wonder at Wimbledon one year to bald-nappy-changing father, and through it all Pete, never-changing, an elegant study in tongue-extended silence, always wrapped in white clothes as if to signify the purity of his purpose. Agassi rebelling, always, with his Canon camera ads that said "Image is everything", and leaving purists aghast when he once caught an embarrassed opponent's serve in his hand because he wanted to give him a free point, and then there was Pete, conspicuously noting his role model was not bad-boys McEnroe and Connors but Laver, becoming a poster boy for traditionalists. Agassi, the dater of Hollywood actresses, the born-again Christian who spat on umpires, who once said at the French he was "as happy as a faggot in a submarine", yet whose charitable work earned him humanitarian awards; while Saint Pete of Sampras, possessor of a true Christian discipline, who ensured his relationships never affected his focus, the altar boy who reportedly had a mouth like an overflowing sewer. Mostly Agassi, now 32, would look up to Pete, now 31, for the younger man was more sure of his place in the world (the best), more certain of his destination (history), more convinced of his superiority. Lately, as Agassi blossomed in tennis' middle-age and the natural athlete in Sampras wound down, the younger man would envy the older man's resilience, his new fitness and perhaps, ironically, would be pushed by Agassi as he once pushed him. By sorting out his head and his game and winning seven Grand Slam titles, Agassi had found redemption; now Sampras, forget 33 tournaments without a win, think 68 months since he won a Slam (Australian Open, 1997) outside grass, knew his last chance had come. And he collected not just all his will, but wisdom, for one improbable dance with glory. Greg Rusedski lacked grace. It did not mean he was completely wrong. Sampras was slower. By the time some of Agassi's returns arrived in the final, he was not even in the service box. But he had also rediscovered his serve, the very engine of his game. His serve was a triumph of engineering, the greatest shot in the game's history. He did not have Becker's stutter and rock, McEnroe's impossible parallel-to-the-baseline stance, Edberg's vicious back bend, Roddick's straight-up-no-backswing-delivery. It was one-ball-toss, bend, arch, rotate, thrusting him towards the net, as graceful as a crouching leopard exploding into full run. Speed, on first, but more so on second serve, was allied with depth and angle and disguise. Pete Fishcer, the pediatrician who coached him as a boy, would apparently wait for Sampras to throw the ball up, and only then demand "down the middle" or "wide". Sampras has rarely played the percentages on his serve, and relied on cheap, quick points. But, at this year's Open, given the present standard of returning, and his increased physical need for abrupt exchanges, he would have to risk everything: serve full bore, and hope the winners outweighed the errors. It worked: he served 61 double faults in seven matches, but 144 aces. His second serve tells its own story. His first serve, at an average through the tournament was 116 mph, as opposed to his opponent's average of 100.5. But his second serve average through seven matches was 108mph, while his opponents average together was 87.8 (20mph slower). If anything, even in general play in the final, Sampras flirted heavily with risk, substituting rallies with low-percentage shots for winners, which also disallowed Agassi any stroke rhythm. It just worked; for him a fifth set may well have been fatal. But these Sampras numbers tell an inadequate tale of nerve, confidence, unending self-belief, and an almost arrogant mastery of the big point. There has never been surely a player like him. And that Agassi, alone, could for so long both lift him and subdue him through the years, is a measure of his own gifts. They played first in Rome on clay in 1989 and Agassi won, and then 33 more times; at present Sampras leads their meetings 20-14. Boris Becker-Stefan-Edberg (25-10) played more times, so did Ivan Lendl-John McEnroe (21-15), and McEnroe-Jimmy Connors (20-13) came close. If Agassi had been steadier they might have played more, but still their rivalry was special; it was the only true contest of their generation. Perhaps only Bjorn Borg-John McEnroe 7-7 was a superior showdown, because Borg managed to beat McEnroe on grass. Agassi never could do that to Pete. It is unlikely (who dares say impossible any more) these two men, their gifts held together by a glue that is slowly melting with time, will ever meet again in a Grand Slam final. It does not matter. Our memory is full. Their journey into legend is done. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ The best show in town is gone forever? By Nirmal Shekar, The Hindu Wednesday, July 02, 2003 LONDON July 1. Have we seen the last of the dinosaurs in men's tennis? Have we seen the last of Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi at Wimbledon? In Sampras' case, the answer can be an unequivocal yes. But question marks remain when it comes to Agassi who, after his defeat to Mark Philippoussis in the fourth round at Wimbledon on Monday, told us that he was planning to be back next year. ``Why won't I be back? I am a tennis player. And this is the place to be,'' said the oldest world No.1 in the history of ATP rankings. Yet, the point is, Agassi will be 34 two months ahead of next year's Wimbledon championships and will have to spend twice as much time changing nappies as he does now. For his wife Steffi Graf would have given birth to their second child long before the first ball is hit in the 118th Wimbledon championships next June. For all the fascinating facts that you can find in the Wimbledon Compendium put together by the Honorary Librarian of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum Alan Little, I am afraid it throws no light on when the last time a father of two won the Wimbledon men's title. ``As you get older, you're more aware of how short-term these opportunities are,'' said Agassi. And when asked if he thought he'd never win Wimbledon again, the 1992 champion said, "It's always a possibility, yeah. For it to happen again would be quite an amazing thing.'' Amazing is a bit of an understatement. It would take a major miracle of the sort not witnessed on the famous lawns since a tactically astute Arthur Ashe toppled a red-hot Jimmy Connors in the 1975 final. Surely, Agassi's body is holding up much better than you'd expect a tennis-playing athlete's to after almost 18 years on the Tour. His friend and fitness trainer Gil Reyes has a lot to do with that and it is also a tribute to the charismatic player's willingness to put in all the hard work at age 33. But the chances of Agassi doing at Wimbledon what his great arch-rival Sampras accomplished at last year's U.S. Open are rather remote. And Agassi knows that too. In the event, no matter what he said in the immediate aftermath of his loss to Philippoussis yesterday, it is entirely possible that we may never see the two dinosaurs in action again on the lawns of Wimbledon. Agassi pegged back by `Sampras era' The Pete-Andre road show was one of the best shows in town as long it lasted. But the two men who first played each other long before they got into their teens and stretched their great rivalry well into their 30s, both legends in their own lifetimes, will never perhaps grace these lawns again. Then again, no matter what the future holds for Sampras and Agassi, we can fondly cling to our wonderful memories of their time here, as elsewhere in the Grand Slam circuit. There is no doubt at all in my mind that Agassi would have won at least one, maybe even two, more Wimbledon titles if he had not had to perform in the greatest single era in the history of grass court tennis � the Sampras era. Where would we rate Sunil Gavaskar if he did not have to pad up in the era of Viv Richards? What would Walter Hammond's place in cricket history be if the boy from Bowral � Don Bradman � had taken to tennis rather than cricket? Interesting questions, but, in the context of history, perhaps irrelevant too. You can't choose your time of birth any more than you can choose your final opponent at Wimbledon! For all that, Agassi himself has had a glorious career and he does have one big prize � the French Open title � which eluded his big-stage nemesis. That he is one of only five men who have won all the four Grand Slam titles is something that clearly underlines Agassi's versatility as a champion. As for Sampras, he was distinctly unlucky that he ran himself into the ground by the time he faced a red-hot Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the semifinals of the French Open in 1996, the one year when he looked good enough to master the red clay of Roland Garros. Sampras' superior record But where Sampras' record is so much superior is not merely is in the number of Grand Slam titles each man has won. With 14 in his bag, Sampras can sleep comfortably the rest of his life in the knowledge that no man is likely to threaten that record. Agassi himself needs another six Grand Slam titles to match the great man and not even the most optimistic of his fans would expect him to get to that figure before he hangs up his racquet. This apart, where Sampras' achievements are far more creditable has to do with the place where his greatest accomplishments have come � Wimbledon. He has seven Wimbledon titles among the 14 majors while four of Agassi's eight titles have been won in the Australian Open, historically ranked No.4 among the Slams. Then again, unlike the U.S. Open, the great rivalry between the two men never threw up any seat-edge thrillers at Wimbledon, although Sampras did beat Agassi in five sets in the 1993 quarterfinals en route to his first title here. The next time they met was in the 1999 final. And, in my mind, for one reason alone, it was the greatest final in Wimbledon history. For the record, Sampras won it in straight sets to tie Roy Emerson's record of 12 Grand Slam titles. But numbers are immaterial in this context. For, from 3-4 and 0-40 down on serve in the first set, Sampras played a brand of tennis that nobody who ever picked a racquet in his life might have aspired to in the entire history of the game. Such stratospheric levels of excellence are only rarely witnessed in any sport. Nadia Comaneci's tryst with perfection, Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope tactics in Kinshasha against George Foreman, Ayrton Senna's drives on the rain-soaked roads of Monaco... only a handful really. Agassi, for his part, played the best tennis of his life on these lawns. Yet Sampras won in straight sets. Such was a great man's outrageous brilliance on that Sunday. Five days from now, two young men entirely unfamiliar with the stage � there is no former champion left in the men's draw of the 117th championships � will contest for the big prize on the centre court. But Pete and Andre won't be there. Perhaps they will never get there again. And that's a pity. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ PRO GAME: Agassi and Sampras: Two for the Ages 8/1/03 By Sally Jenkins From the August 2003 issue of TENNIS Magazine The relationship between Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi is that of two men so different that, in a way, each serves as a looking glass for the other. Andre and Pete; Pete and Andre. Never mind that their on-court rivalry has been less exciting at times than their off-court struggle for the loyalty and affection of tennis fans, that their personal exchanges are merely cordial they are not great friends or, for that matter, great enemies. The intriguing thing is that in the eyes of the public they are nearly inseparable, each of them the measure of the other. For some 15 years, theirs has been a fabulous game of trump: Sampras' nonpareil serve against Agassi's stunning returns; Sampras with the running rope of a forehand, Agassi with the steam-press stroke that is his backhand; Agassi with flair, Sampras with discipline; Sampras all feel, Agassi all fight. Finally, they've attained a like stature. If Sampras' legacy is 14 Grand Slam titles, Agassi's testament is having won all four major trophies. And each can boast a unique claim to the No. 1 spot: Sampras finished the season on top for an unprecedented six consecutive years, while Agassi, at 33, is the oldest man in the modern era to be ranked the highest. They are opposite, these two titans, even in mannerisms: Sampras, long and tensile in a white shirt buttoned to his neck, his ancient Wilson racquet black and dull as an iron skillet; Agassi a darty-eyed, pigeon-toed pirate in denim or black, his untucked V-neck shirt billowing around his waist as he waves a bright ceramic racquet. Sampras was always by the book, more self-willed and accomplished. Agassi was ever the hooky player, or maybe the actor searching for motivation, evading responsibility, and breaking rules. They are similar in two ways: They both wear white socks, and they both want to win everything, including a conversation. Agassi's early brassiness, the dyed blond mane and exhibitionism, disguised a more stubbornly substantial nature than anyone could have predicted. His knee-jerk honesty and a surprisingly searching mind have not permitted him to give up on a career that, despite long hiatuses, has been one long self-exploration. Sampras' rebelliousness was buried beneath a cropped, introverted neatness, his equanimity concealing an ulcerous hypersensitivity. He's far more profane and driven than most would suspect. Sampras liked to celebrate wins at the US Open by going to the Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn and eating so much he made himself sick. His favorite book remains The Catcher in the Rye, the story of a desperate, smart-alecky loner who says, "Don't ever tell anybody anything." Perhaps this dissimilarity accounts for the peculiar fact that Pete and Andre have rarely played their best against each other on the right occasions. When Sampras was great, Agassi was absent. When Agassi was finally fully present, Sampras was already tired. Or so it seemed. Their overall record is 20-14, advantage Sampras, and of their 34 matches only five were Grand Slam finals. But in the last three years they finally made the rivalry a material thing--both of them ready to live up to the moments they shared in the spotlight. And in the 2001 US Open quarterfinals they created an epic, just when we thought they had begun the long, slow fade into retirement. It was as though they made a private accord to play for a final prize. The scoreboard on that September day in New York read 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-5) Sampras. They may have been the best four sets of either player's life, and even announcer John McEnroe was nearly struck speechless. "I am lucky to be a commentator," he said humbly. "I am lucky to be here." Then they went two rounds better in 2002, meeting in the final. Again Sampras won in four, but it hardly mattered, both were victors over time and over a field that was growing ever younger. As Agassi said, "We're still out here and there's no getting around it." Curiously, though, the only other period in which both players were at their best at the same time was in a short but splendid span in 1995 when their match record was square at eight wins apiece and they were at a youthful peak. In late March of that year, they also agreed to a brief d?tente in their rivalry to play a Davis Cup tie in Italy. It was an obscure but telling episode, this uncharacteristic decision to take a buddy trip together to play for their country. The Italians had chosen a slow red-clay court in Palermo, and the Americans knew that without a strong team they could easily lose. So Agassi and Sampras struck a deal with the USTA: Each would abandon his Grand Slam preparation to play only if the other agreed to as well, and if they could take the Concorde to London and a private plane from there to Palermo. The USTA acceded to their demands and booked the flights. But first, a day before they were scheduled to leave, Agassi and Sampras met in the final of the Lipton Championships (now the Nasdaq-100) at Key Biscayne, Fla. Agassi won a three-setter and two weeks later attained the No. 1 ranking. After the match, he offered Sampras a lift to New York on his private jet so they could get a decent night's sleep before traveling to Europe. The two of them took so little time to shower and change that when they jumped into Agassi's rented car, traffic leaving Key Biscayne was still backed up. Agassi casually veered onto the breakdown lane and bypassed the traffic, waving at the other drivers and the occasional bemused cop. While Agassi drove, he and Sampras made awkward small talk, trying to find something they had in common. "Do you like Neil Diamond?" Sampras hazarded. "You know, I do," Agassi said. "I do like Neil Diamond." They moved on to talk shows. "Do you watch Sally Jessie?" Agassi asked. "I watch her," Sampras said. "But I like Montel better. Do you like Montel?" "I like Montel." Soon they arrived on the tarmac at Miami International Airport where Agassi's Citation 10, a burning tennis ball emblazoned on the tail, was waiting. They climbed aboard and a flight attendant greeted them with food and drink. Sampras was awed. He unwrapped a turkey sandwich and bit into it. "You travel like this all the time?" "It's the only way to do it," Agassi said. "It's going to add years to my career." Sampras' habitual austerity gave way. He rocked back in his deep leather seat and swiveled it. "Oh man," he said. "I like the way you travel. What does this cost?" They lapsed into a discussion of chartered hours versus time in airports. Gradually, they relaxed and spent the rest of the flight trading ATP tour gossip, and their strategies against players such as Michael Chang, Boris Becker, and David Wheaton. The next morning they met at Kennedy Airport and boarded the Concorde. As they sat together they evaluated each other's and their own games. Sampras wondered about Agassi's reliance on his coach of the time, Brad Gilbert. "What does he do for you?" Sampras wanted to know. Agassi said that Gilbert gave his game structure; previously, he had been a belter with no idea of shot selection--he just "wracked it." Now, he had a blueprint to build points and matches. Sampras shrugged; all he wanted a coach to do was check his toss. They were met in London by a VIP escort who gave them expedited forms to get them through immigration quickly. Agassi, typically, figured that meant they got to skip the paperwork. But Sampras paused at a counter to fill out his entry card. Agassi waved him on, impatient. "Come on, we don't have to do that." "Yeah, we do," Sampras replied, correctly. Outside, a limo waited to take them to a private terminal for the flight to Palermo. But Agassi was hungry. He said, "Let's go to McDonald's." "I don't think they have one here." "Sure they do," he said. "It's on the outskirts of the airport." Agassi directed the driver to McDonald's. Sampras and Agassi placed their order at the drive-through window: Agassi wanted a couple of burgers. Sampras ordered the same, and they both added Chicken McNuggets as an afterthought, along with large fries and apple pies. They spent four days in Palermo sitting side by side in identical USA sweatshirts. Pete and Andre; Andre and Pete. But in the end the difference between them showed, as it always did. After the USA won 3-0, the question of dead rubbers arose. For Sampras it was a question of responsibility: having decided to do this thing, he was going to do it right. For Agassi it was a matter of love; he could only play if he cared, and he didn't care about an exhibition. Agassi came down with a case of the tweaks and a doctor's note. Sampras played. Andre "How old do you have to be before people forgive you for your past?" Agassi wanted to know. This was a couple of years ago, after he had finished an exhaustive interview in Las Vegas in which ESPN's Roy Firestone had brought up all the old bad-boy episodes, the blurted insults and the tantrums and the tanks and the weird haircuts. Agassi answered the questions, but afterwards, as he left the studio and climbed into his SUV to drive home, the conversation still bothered him. "At what point do people let you move past your childhood?" he wondered. "Is that ever going to happen?" Agassi drove through Vegas at a sedate speed. Against all odds, he had made a man out of himself and he took pride in that. He wanted a little credit for that. He pointed to the left while passing the Andre Agassi Boys & Girls Club, established to benefit at-risk kids. His foundation also had funded a shelter for abused children and a charter school, the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy. Agassi liked to say of the school, "It's not the first two words that matter, it's the last three." Agassi, himself, did not grow up as a normal kid taking college-prep classes. His childhood had been surrendered to the obsessive desire of his father, Mike, to make a tennis champion. Andre was a certified prodigy�on the junior circuit at 7, shipped off to Florida to train with Nick Bollettieri at 13, and by the time he was 18 the No. 3 player the world. In that taxing process, he also had become his own biggest opponent. Later that afternoon in Vegas the question of the past came up again, in a meeting with Nike over the design of new sneakers. Andre wasn't pleased with the cartoon-like shape and colors of the shoes. He was stripped down now, to a basic and unpretentious adult. "Look what they're trying to take me back to," he lamented mockingly. He wanted a design that reflected the lean, clean lines of his adulthood, not the thrashings and yowlings of his adolescence. Still, Andre knew that much had been given as well as taken by the singular way Mike Agassi taught tennis. Other kids had the schooled strokes grooved by country-club teachers, $25-an-hour backhands with proper mechanics and racquet-back preparation. Not Agassi. He stood at mid-court while his father stood at the net and fired balls at him as hard and fast as possible. Shot after shot, the boy would whip his racquet around more tightly, shortening his swing and picking the ball up earlier and earlier, until he was almost volleying his ground strokes. Then Mike would order his son, "Faster!" As Rita Agassi, Andre's older sister, once said of the way Mike taught tennis, of the kind of man he was, "My father was a sober drunk." But if Mike was drunk on tennis, he was also inspired. His methods were based on his intuitive grasp of velocity and speed-to-power ratios. Several years ago, Mike privately expounded on the theory underlying Andre's strokes. Standing in his Vegas living room, with a tennis court and desert dunes visible beyond the picture window, he held up a gauzy cotton handkerchief and waved it around. "See," he said, "is that going to hurt anyone?" Then he twirled the handkerchief around and around until it formed a tightly wound whip. He snapped it in the air and said, "Now that will hurt someone." Mike stared out the window, at the court with the ball machine at the far end. It mostly went unused now that Andre was grown, had a home of his own, and rarely played at his father's. "I wish there were some little ones to teach," Mike said sadly. But maybe it's just as well Mike didn't put his mark on any more children. Agassi remembers being paraded around on a tennis court at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, his father advertising his prodigy to visiting pros. Once, when Agassi lost a junior tournament, Mike took the runner-up trophy and hurled it into a nearby garbage can. In that moment, a lifelong mutineer was born. "You know what?" Agassi has grown fond of saying. "I'd rather feel I missed out on some good tennis than some good living." Pete He always has been a great killer of momentum, all but his own. He abbreviated so many points, squelched so many hopes, with that great blast of a serve. He lulled opponents and audiences alike with the trancelike rhythm of his game and the monotony with which he acquired titles and records. But Sampras played complete and deeply realized tennis, too; he never bored the connoisseurs or those who understood that beneath the seeming indifference lay a craving for the game so powerful that he twice vomited on the court and once even wept on it. As his former coach Paul Annacone said, "Pete makes it look too easy. People watch him win and think, 'That doesn't look too hard.'" The ease of his game did Sampras a disservice: It obscured his supreme professionalism, no common commodity these days. We thought Sampras would always be there. He's been more than just great; he's been dependably, reliably great. For more than a decade, we could count on him: 64 singles titles, while the lurkers and bangers and transients came and went. He never really changed. Sampras won the US Open as a 19-year-old in 1990 with a thoroughly unaffected manner and a quirky sense of humor. When told the President might call him, he smiled, grimaced shyly, and said, "The phone's off the hook." Asked to describe himself at the time, he said, "I'm a normal 19-year-old with a very unusual job, doing very unusual things." But that was only partly right. He was a fragile, touchy creature, too. Before he became an invincible champion, he was all lethargy and sensitivity, not a good player in the heat, or in the mornings, and not yet insensitive to pressure, either. Two years would pass before he won his second major, and of them he says, "I had to learn how to play tennis. I was the greenhorn, the kid who had to do it all by himself, learn it all by himself. Nobody told him anything." Sampras has always felt this curious sense of isolation, almost as if he were orphaned on the court. And if Pete and Andre seem different, what about Mike Agassi and Sam Sampras? What of the way Sam would drop little Pete off at junior tournaments and then simply turn and leave? Pete remembers being abandoned, the sight of Sam's back, moving away. Sam was too nervous to watch, sure. But he also wasn't certain he approved of this whole costly and troublesome junior circuit. Sampras would stand on the court, watching his father retreat, and years later he said, "I still remember feeling alone." Sam made a self-sufficient player of him, and a self-effacing one, too. On the afternoon Sampras had a big win and was interviewed by the press for the first time, his father cautioned him: "Just tell them you were lucky." The next day, Sampras lost. As he sat there, brooding, his father tapped him on the shoulder, pointing to the winner and new darling of the press. "See that?" he said. "That's what happens." And in that moment, a reticent star was born. Pete and Andre; Andre and Pete They are what tennis needs more of: grown men. Over the years, the public has developed a relationship with them, a continuous connection that it doesn't have with any other players. Maybe one day we'll know Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick this well, but for now they are superficial characters, rude bashers with sticky hair. Agassi and Sampras have known each other for two-thirds of their lives. We have known them for half. They start as two small boys, Sampras 8 years old, Agassi 9 or 10, and they are on a court in Northridge, Calif., about to play each other for the first time. Agassi, if you can believe it, is the bigger of the two, recalling years later that Sampras "comes up to about my chin." But Agassi has no real ground strokes yet, and Sampras remembers saying of him, "He's all trick shots." Then again, Sampras has no serve, and with his two-handed backhand he's a tiny baseline grinder. They could not be more different, and the same will be said of the way they will go about things from this point on. Sampras will worship tradition and study the greats and attain a pure classicism. Agassi will become a work of junk fiction and then mature into an artist. Neither can remember who won that first match. We cannot remember, or imagine, the game without them. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ PRO GAME: Agassi and Sampras: The Great Ones What Pete and Andre have brought to the game may be imitated, but it will never be equaled. 8/1/03 By Bud Collins From the August 2003 issue of TENNIS Magazine Which of their achievements is more monumental? Pete's unparalleled 14 major singles championships? Or Andre's eight, including, notably, each of the four majors? Would Pete trade a couple of his seven Wimbledons for the missing French? Does Andre wish his intensity of today had been plugged in during the Roland Garros finals of 1990 and 1991 that he should have won? You can speculate, of course, and people will be doing that for years�and Agassi just might be hanging around for three or four of them, further buffing his dazzling luster. But it's impossible to measure the marvelous impact Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi have had on the game and its faithful. It's a given that both will find cozy niches in Newport, R.I., at the International Tennis Hall of Fame. If Pete really has packed up his career, which seems the case as he says he won't play at all this year, he will be anointed in 2008; Andre will get the nod five years after his curtain call. It will be an honor, obviously, but one hardly needed to certify their eminence. When all-timers depart, the game is impoverished. Then somebody comes along to hold our interest. But whoever is next after Pete and Andre�maybe it will be some kid who's hitting the felt off the ball against a garage door right now�chances are they won't grip us as Pete and Andre have because of the distinctive way they've gone about ringing our bells. Surrounded by one-dimensional baseliners who hit with tons of topspin, they have set themselves apart by sculpting their own styles, which may well be unapproachable. Is Pete the last of the bold tennis Mohicans, the serve-and-volleyers? Is his fluidity and grace gone forever? His style is out of style, sadly. A declining number of practitioners are daring (or foolish?) enough to keep rushing the net, seeming descendants of the vainly charging Light Brigade, but against the passers with big topspin strokes they have little chance. Only Silky Sampras, precise and elegant of touch, could combat the barbarians from up close. Hail and farewell. Agassi is a baseliner, true, but never one of the majority. Sometimes you think he's playing Ping-Pong, taking the ball so early on the rise that he's virtually half-volleying, allowing his opponent little time to reciprocate. He moves adversaries to regions they don't like, and viewers to the joy of beholding. His quickness of hands and feet and his lightning thought processes have blended in a product remarkably better at age 33 than ever before. Fitter, stronger, smarter, he's curious to see how far he can push himself. While people will endlessly debate their resumes, most would agree that Agassi has the better story to tell: the tumbles from the Top 10 to purgatory (No. 8 in 1996 to No. 122 in 1997) and the recoveries to emerge in Paradise, the metamorphosis from careless cretin to thoughtful, responsible, altruistic citizen and family man. But Pete's ending of a 33-tournament drought to deprive Andre of the 2002 U.S. Open title wasn't bad either, and it certainly makes for a wonderful denouement. So what will we do without Pete and Andre? Is there a spare patch of rock face at Mount Rushmore where some latter-day John Gutzon Borglum could hammer and chisel their visages? Then, fittingly, they'd be faces in the clouds, tennis gods looming as they always have, above the fray. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ PRO GAME: Agassi and Sampras: Opposites Attract 8/1/03 By Chris Evert From the August 2003 issue of TENNIS Magazine Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras will forever be linked. Like McEnroe, Borg, and Connors, or Martina and myself, Pete and Andre were the signature rivals of their generation. What makes a rivalry special? I think there are two major components, and Andre and Pete fit the bill perfectly. First, there needs to be a contrast. That starts with personalities. Andre, the Las Vegas showman, had the flashy persona. As he's gotten older, he's become all business on the court, but for the first part of his career he sported neon clothes, bleached-blond shoulder-length hair, and a dangling earring. Pete was more old school. A laid-back, clean-cut Southern California kid who tried to maintain control over his emotions at all times. Then you have to consider playing styles. These two couldn't have been more different. Agassi was the hard-working counterpuncher who punished his opponents from the baseline. Sampras had the classic strokes that set up his serve-and-volley attack. In fact, each one's signature shot was the opposite of the other's. The Sampras serve vs. the Agassi return. These contrasts allow fans to pick a side--which they love to do. When players are similar (like Venus and Serena Williams, for example) in personality and playing style, it's hard to root for one over the other. Pete and Andre each have their own set of devoted followers. Some loved Pete's humble professionalism, while others were drawn in by Andre's charisma. Whatever the reasons for the allegiance, when these two played you knew it was going to be a noisy match with lots of energy and cheering coming from the crowd. And rarely would any fans straddle the fence. They were either in the Sampras or the Agassi camp. The second requirement for a historic rivalry is longevity. The two participants must share history. The McEnroe, Borg, and Connors era was too short-lived. It was great for a couple of years, but it faded fast. There has to be a lot of matches between the players and some of them have to be classic. Agassi and Sampras played 34 matches (Pete with the 20-14 edge), nine of which occurred at Grand Slams. My personal favorite was the 2001 U.S. Open quarterfinal. It was perfect--Arthur Ashe Stadium under the lights, four tiebreakers, and no service breaks. Each playing at his peak, with Sampras coming out victorious. So who had the better career? Some will give Sampras the edge in accomplishments. He won more singles Slams than any other man and held the No. 1 ranking for an ATP-record six consecutive years. He's mentioned in the same breath with the all-time greats. On the other hand, Andre won all four Slams, something Pete never did, and is still going strong today. Again, fans will side with their man. I guess like any great rivalry, their legacies will battle it out for superiority long after these two great players have retired. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ PRO GAME: Jim Courier on his Friends and Rivals, Pete and Andre 8/1/03 By Jim Courier From the August 2003 issue of TENNIS Magazine A few years ago, I stopped in Las Vegas on my way to a charity exhibition to play a round of golf with Andre Agassi. Steffi Graf, his companion (and now wife), came along to drive one of the carts and take pictures. While we were putting on one hole, the caddy asked, "So, how many Grand Slam titles did you guys say you got?" I shrugged and said, "Four. How about you, Andre?" "Six." He turned and called over to Steffi. "How about you, Steff. How many did you get?" She paused and said, "Twenty-two." Andre and I just looked at each other and cracked up. It was a wonderful moment, one of many I've shared with Andre over the years. I'll remember it for a long time because it was a reminder that it's always good to see your achievements, and yourself, in perspective. Because it's never just about titles, any more than a job should be just about money. It's also about who you were, how you acquitted yourself out there, and what you brought to the game. And on that count, Andre can rest assured. So, for that matter, can that other rival and friend of mine, Pete Sampras. I grew up with these guys. I competed against them and, on Davis Cup squads, with them. We shared good times and tough times and even, in the case of Pete, a tragic time. I've also watched them carry the game on their shoulders for the better part of 15 years. This sometimes amazes me because I can remember a time when it wasn't even certain that Andre or Pete would become top pros, never mind define the game in this era. Andre's talent was obvious at an early age. His eyes and hands were great. He was and still is an amazing ball striker. But Andre was a loose cannon. We didn't know if he had the desire or staying power to live up to his ability. As kids, the competition between us (our generation also included Michael Chang, David Wheaton, Mal Washington, and Todd Martin) was pretty intense�so intense that when Andre tried the pro tour in 1986, at 16, it almost felt like he was fleeing the pressure of the junior game. He had nothing to lose on tour. But that was when his talent started to shine. In the blink of an eye, it seemed, Andre was in the quarterfinals of a tournament at Stratton Mountain, Vermont, and we couldn't help but think, "This is the same guy we were practicing with two weeks ago. We can't be too far off." But questions of competitive character trailed Andre right up to the time I played him at Roland Garros in 1991. He was the hyped young star, yet people weren't sure of his ability to win big finals. This time, I was the one with nothing to lose. I think losing to me in that final sent Andre into a tailspin for a year and was the beginning of a pattern. This perceived flaw�I'd call it a lack of persistence�is what periodically caused Andre to drift off into other things when he got discouraged by tennis (it was also a blessing in disguise, enabling him to escape burnout). One of the major reasons I admire Andre is because he could so easily have wandered away from tennis for good, but he didn't. With his charisma and intelligence, he could have headed for a place like Hollywood, leaving behind an "if only" kind of tennis resume. But Andre chose a tougher road. He dug deep and faced up to his abilities and responsibilities in tennis. He became persistent. Andre recognized that he was given a lot but up to that point he had given very little. He's spent a huge part of his career redressing that. He's now the most philanthropic player out there. He's also a grounded family man and superbly professional. Pete is a different breed, and that bipolar quality in their relationship is the reason their rivalry has been so interesting. Pete and I weren't junior rivals (we only played once), so we became closer friends. The thing with Pete is, he's not really a curious guy in the same way Andre is. He doesn't ask himself, "Why am I doing this?" For Pete, A plus B always equals C. If he prepares, gets in shape, and practices, he's going to beat most players. So that's what he did. It took awhile, though, for Pete to understand those ABCs. Starting out, Pete took a bashing for not being Andre (who is?), and it also seemed like he might be too laid back to be a big winner. After Pete won his first Grand Slam, the U.S. Open in 1990, he shrank back from the challenges and pressures most champions thrive on. The guy who recognized that Pete was an insecure kid was his coach, the late Tim Gullikson. When Pete was floundering and uncertain of how good he was, or how comfortable he felt as a top dog, Tim told Pete what he needed to hear: "You have more ability than anyone else out there, it's time you started making good on it without easing up on yourself." After Pete got another taste of success, he began to develop what would become his greatest asset, the single-mindedness that allowed him to focus on the only thing he really wanted: to win major titles. Once his ambition crystallized, Pete never strayed from that focus. He lost Tim to brain cancer midcourse, but even then he didn't break stride. Pete modeled himself on heroes from another era, and we discovered that he really was like those tight-lipped, modest, classy Australian champions of the '50s and '60s. Pete learned to live with his guard up, so much that he really enjoys letting it down. This same guy who pulls all of his punches in public pulls none of them in private. He has a biting, sarcastic wit, and he enjoys a good laugh. That we never see this in public says a lot about Pete's self-control. But Pete feels more than he shows; that was made very clear in our quarterfinal match at the Australian Open in 1995, a year and a half before Tim died. Pete broke down in tears on court that day but he pressed on and won the five-set war, demonstrating that he didn't ignore things or tune them out�he internalized them. Afterwards, as we both lay in the trainer's room getting the cramps massaged out of our arms and legs, we talked about the match, about Tim, about life. I'm proud of everything about that match, from the drama to the sportsmanship we both showed to the level of play and the camaraderie. Pete, by the way, has 14 Grand Slam singles titles. That's more than Andre and I have combined, but still eight fewer than Steffi. As is often the case, numbers don't tell the whole story. Jim Courier played on Davis Cup championship teams with Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi in 1992 and 1995. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ INSTRUCTION: Pete and Andre's Games Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi are a study in contrasts. Adapting the best parts of each player's unique style will make you a more complete player. 8/1/03 By Nick Bollettier Excerpted from the August 2003 issue of TENNIS Magazine Watching Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi play tennis is a teaching pro's dream. Everything we strive to show our students is demonstrated to perfection by these two individuals. It's easy to get caught up in the highlights and the amazing things they do on a court, but we can't lose sight of the building blocks that make them such great players. Pete's blazing aces, screaming forehand crosscourt winners, and surgically placed volleys along with Andre's rock-steady groundies and demoralizing return of serve are just byproducts of wonderful technique, tactics, and hard work. Each has his own style, and it's interesting to compare the different approaches they take to toppling the competition. By breaking down the finer points of these two champions, you'll learn things that will benefit your own game. Here's a side-by-side, shot-by-shot analysis of two of the all-time greats. SERVE SAMPRAS: Pete uses both first and second serves as opportunities to win the point with one swing. The ability to strike quickly with an aggressive serve is the key to Pete's game. Indeed, the serve and Sampras are practically synonymous. As a serve-and-volleyer, Pete looks to capitalize on his delivery and move to net and attack. His second serve is the equal of many players' first and allows him to be ultra-aggressive on his first offering. He has an effortless motion that incorporates every power source beginning with his feet pushing off the ground. Exploding from the feet is crucial for developing a powerful serve. And having good shoulder rotation like Pete's allows you to disguise the shot so you can hit serves out wide, into the body, and down the T without your opponent anticipating the location. You never want to fall into a pattern that your opponents can pick up on. AGASSI: Emphasizing placement and control over power helps put Andre in command of most points. Winning points off the serve isn't part of Andre's game plan. He has just enough in his serving arsenal to set up his ground strokes. Andre will swing or kick his opponents out wide and open up the court for his putaway shots. He gets a high percentage of first serves in play, which results in few aces but even fewer return winners from his opponents. Andre gets nowhere near the free points from the serve that Pete does, yet he is consistently among the tour leaders in holding serve. RETURN OF SERVE AGASSI: Looking to turn the tables on the server, Andre uses a quick-strike attack. What Sampras is to the serve, Andre is to the return. Because of his amazing hands and compact strokes, combined with perfect timing and excellent vision, Agassi's return is second to none. Where many people are forced to play defensively against first serves, Andre applies his own power. His return often allows him to take control of the point right from the outset. The key to this aggressive style of returning is deceptively simple: stand right on top of the baseline, take the serve inside the court, and use a short backswing. From this court position you'll get the ball back quickly and catch your opponents off guard. SAMPRAS: Because he holds serve at such a high percentage, Pete can be opportunistic with his return game. Depending on the situation, he can vary his return of serve. Against a good server, Pete usually looks to block or chip his return with an abbreviated swing on first serves to get the point started. But on second serves he's more aggressive, going after his forehand or slicing his backhand and attacking the net. To get a forehand on the ad side, Pete positions himself in the doubles alley just as his opponent starts his delivery. By doing this, you force your opponent to create a severe angle with the serve to get it to your backhand, or challenge them to go down the middle to your strength. FOREHAND SAMPRAS: This is a weapon that can put his opponent on the extreme defensive or win the point outright. Pete holds the racquet with an Eastern grip, allowing him to hit flat, penetrating drives to the corners of the court. He can put more topspin on the ball if he desires, but that's not his style. He wants to draw a mid-court shot (an opportunity ball) from his opponent and then punish it to either corner and follow it to net. A favorite Sampras tactic is cheating toward his backhand side, daring his opponent to hit to the open forehand side. If you've got quick feet and can hit well on the run, this is a good way to showcase your forehand. Just make sure that you get the racquet back well before the ball even crosses the net, just like Pete does. AGASSI: With a versatile stroke, Andre applies varying amounts of spin to push the opposition all over the court. When Andre controls the center of the court by going crosscourt and inside-out with his forehand, he dictates the action. Andre's semi-Western grip puts more topspin on the ball than Sampras' Eastern does. This gives you more margin for error on the forehand. The beauty of Andre's forehand is that it has several gears. He can brush up the back of the ball for excessive topspin, which makes the ball accelerate after hitting the court. This is for creating sharp angles off of low balls or for hitting topspin lobs. When the ball is at waist level, Andre drives through his forehand for more pace and penetration, yet still gets enough spin for control. And if he gets a ball in his strike zone that he can put away, he opens up his stance and flattens out his forehand for a winner. On putaway shots like this, take some spin off the ball so you can hit through the court with more pace. BACKHAND AGASSI: Andre's two-hander is steady as a rock yet capable of providing offensive firepower. Andre has always had a world-class forehand, but I feel his backhand is his bread-and-butter weapon. He can create all the shots from this wing, which generally results in him moving his opponents from side to side and punishing them physically. Andre is a master at using his left hand to control the racquet head and get spin on the ball. It's what I call "shaping" the shot. Also, Andre keeps his racquet head slightly above his hands regardless of the height of the incoming ball. This lets you create a nice loop on your backswing for more racquet-head speed and topspin. SAMPRAS: With his one-hander, Pete can drive the ball flat, slice it, or roll it with topspin. The stroke also provides great flexibility for his attacking game. At a young age, Pete switched from a two-handed to a one-handed backhand with an Eastern grip. This was done to help his transition game and make him an all-court player. Although not the weapon his forehand is, Pete's backhand keeps him in the rally from the baseline and can deliver the goods on passes or carve out specialty shots when needed. Over the years, Pete has developed an effective slice that changes the pace of a rally or is used to approach the net. On the slice, remember to slide the racquet underneath and through the ball. Otherwise it will just float. Sampras shows that your backhand doesn't have to be a huge shot, just a dependable one. NET GAME SAMPRAS: He has every volley in the book and sets them up with huge serves and approach shots. Pete's volley technique is flawless. He can hurt you with high, half, and shoestring volleys, and he's got a devastating overhead. With a firm hold on his Continental grip and an upright racquet head, Pete uses his athleticism to smother the net and is rarely caught out of position. Pete is also very smart with his shot selection at net, always cutting down the passing lanes and anticipating his opponent's next move. If he doesn't have a clear putaway, he'll volley straight ahead, forcing his opponent to create a difficult angle. It's always wise to make contact with your first volley inside the service line. The closer to the net you are, the better your angles will be on putaways. AGASSI: After hitting a penetrating ground stroke, Andre is reliable with his volley putaway. With the exception of his trademark "swinging volley," Andre is not known for his prowess at net. Rarely will you see him come forward on a classic slice approach shot. But his volleys do the job most of the time because the damage has already been done by his groundies, making the task of finishing the point at the net much easier. Although his volleys are unremarkable, Andre is surprisingly effective at net because he's so selective about which shots he follows in. Count how many times he hits the ball crosscourt, wearing his opponent down to set up that short ball. To safely get your opponent scrambling, you should hit 75 percent of your shots crosscourt. So even if you're not a natural volleyer, if you pick your spots well you can still be successful at net. STRATEGY AGASSI: Andre approaches the match like a fight�first he beats up his opponent, then he goes for the knockout. Just like a fighter (after all, his dad, Mike, was a boxer), Andre wears out his opponents in the early stages of a match with jabs and combinations. I worked with Andre to make the first set last as long as possible. If you look at his statistics, he generally has fewer winners in the first set than in the rest of the match. He doesn't focus as much on the number of points he wins or loses but how much punishment he dishes out. Even if he has a chance to end the point, Andre will make his opponent hit one more ball. I remember yelling to Andre in practice, "Bradenton to Las Vegas" and "coast to coast" to get him to move his opponents. Once the opponent starts to drop his guard and show fatigue, Andre goes for the kill. He steps inside the baseline, takes the ball on the rise (around his former hairline), flattens his strokes out, and goes for more winners. He doesn't aim at the baseline anymore, but rather three-quarter court with sharper angles. It's Andre's goal to make the match so painful for his opponent that he'll never want to play him again. SAMPRAS: The consummate front-runner, Pete comes into a match with the mind-set that if he's never behind, he can't lose. When he's playing his best, Pete's always forcing his opponent to catch up in the points. He uses his big shots and athleticism to close in on the net and finish points quickly. If he happens to get behind in the point, Pete looks for a shot (like his running forehand) that will immediately grab the momentum back. It's the same with the match as a whole. All Sampras wants is that one service break a set and he can cruis. He has so much confidence in his serve he believes he can hold it every time. And if he can't find that break during the set, he feels he'll get a mini-break during the tiebreaker. His relaxed intensity and big serve have allowed him to handle the big points better than any player ever has. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Agassi-Sampras: Coulda been grander by Ian O'Connor, USA Today September 3, 2003 NEW YORK ? The rains kept coming in biblical waves and so did the nagging memories of what might have been. Pete Sampras was beating Andre Agassi on the U.S. Open monitors in the locker room, the lounge, the empty stadium and the full press room, making it a tough day to hide for a man who didn't need to pull an ad campaign from the shelves of his six former lives to understand that these images were everything. Agassi coulda been a contenda. It was right there in the black Andre was wearing and the white Pete was wearing in the classic 2001 quarterfinal that made for Tuesday's rain-delay theater, a match including four tiebreakers, no service breaks and one winner who wished his opponent hadn't waited so long to hit him with his best punch. "From a legacy question, sure, it would've been better for me if I had more big matches with Andre," Sampras had said at his locker. "When I played Andre in the '95 final here, there was so much buzz. We were 1 and 2 in the world. That was the most unique Grand Slam final I've ever been a part of, but we haven't had many moments like that. Andre had won 26 straight matches ... and I think that popped his balloon for quite a while." Deflated, inflated, ready to burst ? they're all temporary states of being for Andre. Tuesday night, after an endless odyssey of waiting, Agassi seized his 200th victory in a Grand Slam event and escaped a potential nightmare when Taylor Dent, the first-set winner, quit with a bum leg after Agassi won the second and third sets. The surreal, suspension-filled day made for a fitting time to recall that 33-year-old Agassi waited too long on himself, wasting valuable stretches of his prime reinventing himself while the relentlessly stable Sampras blazed a singular trail to greatness. Agassi lost in last year's final, the 14th and final major triumph of Sampras' career, and so it's been easy to cast him as a lifelong antagonist. Agassi won his eighth major this year. He is a year older than Sampras and still going strong. Today's Agassi also smacks of sincerity. He comes across as hopelessly devoted to his pregnant wife, Steffi Graf, and their son, Jaden. The work he's done in Las Vegas for needy children, clothing them and building them a school, represents a genuine model for the empty-shell celebrities who babble about "giving something back." So when Agassi doesn't show for Sampras' retirement ceremony, he earns the benefit of the doubt. A benefit he didn't deserve when skipping the 1997 Arthur Ashe dedication to see a movie. That Agassi would plunge to 141st in the rankings and into a Challenger event. For the world's second-best talent, it was an inexcusable fall from Grand Slam grace. In the six consecutive seasons Sampras finished at No. 1, Agassi finished at No. 24, No. 2, No. 2, No. 8, No. 122 and No. 6. His rankings wandered like his fit-one-day, fat-the-next commitments. Women and coaches were part of the changeover from frosted-hair rock star to Zen Master to bald and grounded family man. Barbra Streisand, Brooke Shields and Graf. Nick Bollettieri, Brad Gilbert and Darren Cahill. "After Andre separated from Brooke," Bollettieri said Tuesday, "he made a promise that he was going to become stingy with his career. He said, 'I'm going to become what I'm capable of becoming.' Once Andre accepted responsibility and started to play for Andre and not other people's expectations, I knew he'd get back to winning big." Bollettieri began teaching Andre when the kid was 14. Nine years later the coach fired him by letter. "One of the biggest mistakes I ever made, not facing him in person," Bollettieri said. "I wrote Andre this year to tell him that. He's a really caring person. Were there opportunities Andre missed in making more of a rivalry with Pete? Yes. But Andre's work with those children is more important than that rivalry. He's become exactly what this industry needs, a hero on the court and off." On the court, the industry could've used a few more heroic strokes in the 20-something years. The prime Agassi and the prime Sampras shared their moments at Wimbledon, the Australian and the Open, just not enough of them. Their most memorable point unfolded in the 1995 Open, with Sampras receiving on set point in the first and engaging Agassi in a breathless exchange of cross-court forehands and backhands before nailing the decisive blow. "That point symbolized a lot about our careers," Sampras said recently by phone. "Andre had an unbelievable run going, but then he went one way and I went the other." So tennis' Ali couldn't keep his Frazier within arm's reach. "It's sad for me," Agassi said of Sampras' retirement. "I've been with him a long time." Agassi should've done more with that time. He should've thrown his best hooks before Sampras was gone from the ring. Ian O'Connor also writes for The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News |
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