Agassi “Open”
When you hear Andre Agassi you automatically know he is one of 10 best players of the Open era. Is he 3rd, 5th or 7th? It depends which criteria we adopt, if the fact he won “golden slam” (4 majors plus Olympic gold medal) is crucial, adding he won also Masters and contributed to the Davis Cup triumph (three times), we can say he is the greatest one, because no other player notched “big 7”.
Whatever we can say about his place in the tennis history, it’s very interesting to know what makes that a prodigy becomes such a great champion. And the well written, dynamic book (interesting construction, first a vivid description of Agassi’s last winning match, then a chronological story of his fascinating, magical journey) reveals this process, allows to understand how important are other people in someone’s success, it tells us that without complicated relations with his father, a help of Gil Reyes in terms of physical fitness, and help of Brad Gilbert considering mentality, the American wouldn’t have achieved so much. Agassi is not only one of the greatest players, but also an icon of tennis, therefore it’s not a book only for tennis fans, it’s a book for sport’s lovers in general, maybe even for those who aren’t interested in sport, because Agassi with his label “image is everything” became an ingredient of the pop-culture. Perhaps it’s the reason I had an impression I was reading a novel not an autobiography, there are so many dialogues and monologues…
Obviously it makes an impact on a couple tennis-wise mistakes, nevertheless the book delivers description of prominent matches and on-court nuances concerning a few top players. Not too many scorelines out there, but on page No. 97 appear out of nowhere Agassi’s 3 scorelines of qualifying rounds to his first main-level tournament which you won’t find either on ATP or ITF websites.
This is the second book about a tennis player I have read this year, in some sense connected to the first one through the Shields’ family: Frank (the best friend of Sidney Wood) and his grand-daughter Brooke (Agassi’s former wife), protagonists of both books 🙂
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Agassi is a great player but is not by any means top 5 of the open era.Federer Sampras Borg and Nadal are clearly better.Connors and Lendl too.Agassi had a win loss percentage of 76% and Connors and Lendl over 81%.They won more tournaments and the records of both Lendl and Connors are more impressive.Connors was 12 years in a row in the top 3 and 14 top 5.Agassi was 16 years in the top 10 but only 8 years in the top 5 less than even Edberg and Becker.The only year Agassi was number 1 99 he lost 4 out of 5 matches against Sampras.Connors was number 1 in 74 76 and 82.Collins Flink and Drucker all rank Connors and Lendl over Agassi.
Thanks Juan for your opinion. I don’t like to compare players from different periods as you know, it was my provocation because I’d like to know which criteria people consider as important 🙂
I know the Top 10 of the Open era, but ordering them I would treat only for fun.
Hiya Voo.
You are right that its so hard to compare players from different generations.I asked Bjorn Borg that in 97 and he said the same thing.Its impossible.
I saw Agassi against Jaite in 88 in Argentina.Agassi at his best awesome.He hit so hard.He routed Jaite in 3 sets.
There were some controversies in that match because Agassi caught the ball served by Jaite, do you remember this?
Yes I remember.The Argentinians did not like that at all.Andre did not think about it.He did not do it on purpose or bad faith I guess.He was toying with Jaite really and it was a mistake.
He was so superior in that match.Jaite was a decent top 20 player but a very bad Davis Cup player specially at home.Abroad He played better.
Agassi reminds in his book that the crowd booed him for that, but he didn’t want to humiliate Jaite.
During the summer 1988, Agassi was an arrogant and superficial player, he had problems with a lot of players, his behaviour was unacceptable for McEnroe and others… Maybe he didn’t want to humiliate Martin Jaite, but he was awkward… I remember Agassi knew two defaults in tournament in his career (Indianapolis 1996 and San Jose 1999) and in the US Open 1990, he was close to being disqualified during a match of the 1st week! I remember too of his ad, he said these words “Image is everything” … He began to change at the end of 90’s with the divorce with Brooke Shields, and during the 2000’s, Andre Agassi has got awareness of others, of life and of tennis. A legend is born! 🙂 His life is interesting with all his awkwardnesses between the end of 80’s untill today! 🙂
Good day! 🙂