|
STORMS BACK TO BEAT MATHIEU
IN FIVE
The metamorphosis of Andre
Agassi
By
Sandra Harwitt
tennisreporters.net
|
Fred
Mullane
Camerawork USA, Inc.
|
FROM ROLAND GARROS –
Back when Andre Agassi was an immensely
talented and flashy teen, donning outrageous clothing ensembles
and waist-length bleached-blonde locks, he also was a bit too immature
to make the most of his talents. Careful schedule planning, intense
training and a serious attitude for every match played was still
a good distance away. It seemed on many days that Agassi would give
up the fight, and on more than one occasion, you’d here the
cry that he tanked away a match. And in the few years before he
won his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon 1992, the joke of the
summer always was that Andre won the Big W again – the Washington,
D.C. title.
But as he’s matured,
shaved his already balding scalp instead of trying to do the great
cover-up with hair flipped over the side of his head, his approach
to the game changed dramatically. From the guy who cared less about
preparation and practice, Agassi eventually emerged as the height
of professionalism and the very picture of athletic prowess.
While Agassi has developed
into a sensible adult and understands that in the beginning of his
career he lacked the proper attitude to advance, he also seemingly
has no regrets.
“I definitely didn’t
feel like I gave myself the best shot possible,” said Agassi,
of the early years. “You know, who knows (what would have happened
if I did things differently). Maybe if I was doing that (being more
professional) then, I’d be sitting on my couch right now, back
home, watching this tournament. Every time I think about the things
I could have done differently, I take a lot of pleasure in the fact
that I’m still here doing things the way I want.”
Clearly without his fitness level at the heights it is, there would
be no way at 32 years old he would have survived the 4-6, 3-6, 6-3,
6-3, 6-3 fourth-round match against Paul-Henri Mathieu of France
in three hours, 18 minutes on Monday afternoon. And he not only
survived and worked his way back from two sets behind and a break
down in the third set to upend the 20-year-old French wildcard,
but he also recovered from trailing 3-1 in the final set.
“I certainly dug a big
hole for myself,” Agassi said. “A lot has to do with the
way he was playing. But down two sets and a break, the good news
is it can’t get any worse.”
MOVES TO 22-18 IN FIVE-SET
MATCHES
For Agassi, coming back from two
sets down to Matthieu, marks only the fourth time in nine career
matches where he’s been behind two-sets-to-none that he’s
been able to make that giant leap. In all, he’s played 40 five-set
matches in his career and won 22 of them including the match against
Matthieu. The last time that Agassi experienced the sensation of
a dramatic on court resurrection was right here in 1999 when he
trailed Andrei Medvedev by two sets in the final, and after a lengthy
rain delay, came back to win his only Roland Garros trophy to date.
Talking about the precarious
position he was in until things permanently turn around for him
in the latter stages of the fifth set on Monday, Agassi said, “I
think at that stage, it’s not about confidence, it’s about
finding a way to win or making somebody else play pretty darn well
to finish you off. The great thing about tennis is you can’t
run out the clock. You can’t just get a lead for yourself and
slow down; you have to find a way to finish. As long as we were
still playing, I had a chance.”
Through the seasons on tour,
Agassi’s been able to develop an appropriate mental strategy
for those moments when his game isn’t working, losing looms
as a distinct possibility, that is unless a five-set win is in the
offing.
“The only way to do it
is to take one point at a time and not to get ahead of yourself,”
Agassi said. “You can’t think to yourself, ‘You got
a long way to go.’ You can’t think about winning the match
at that point. You have to find a way to make the match start being
more difficult for your opponent.”
Agassi, more than anyone,
realizes that his enthralling comeback on Monday is light years
away from where he was in an earlier era of his career, and that
in days gone by, the outcome of the day might have been quite different.
“I don’t know if
I would have done this before, come back before, when I was younger,
I don’t know,” said Agassi, who surprisingly first came
back from two sets down in a quarterfinal match against Jim Courier
at the Australian Open in 1996, in his 10th year on tour. “You
know it took me a while to do it, to ever do it. But it’s not
an easy task.”
|
