A career for the ages came to a close when Andre Agassi lost to 112th-ranked Benjamin Becker, who served an ace to finish off a 7-5, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-5 victory in the third round at the U.S. Open on Sunday. Worn down and wincing, Agassi could only stand and watch the final shot whiz by. Agassi looked like what he had become -- a 36-year-old man trying to play tennis with a bad back that needed four injections. Agassi teared up on the blue court as he addressed a crowd that showed up early at Arthur Ashe Stadium and tried to spur him all afternoon. More than 20 minutes after the match, Agassi still was crying as he limped to the locker room. He finished with a competitive career match record of 870-274 and a lifetime of memories -- for him and his legion of fans.
Editor's Note: Few individuals can completely revolutionize an entire sport. Michael Jordan made people everywhere want to pick up a basketball and envision themselves taking the final shot with the game on the line or dunking from the free throw line. Tiger Woods continues to inspire scores of youngsters (and those not so young) around the world to take up the game of golf. Personally, I can say I fell into both of those categories. But on a greater level, Andre Agassi inspired me (and millions everywhere, I'm sure) to take up the game of tennis, the sport which provided me the most joy and success growing up (minus a few broken rackets hurled into the fence, ground, etc.). Even though the game of tennis had legends and tradition long before he came along, simply put, Agassi made tennis cool. Sporting neon colors, off the wall shoes (I had the yellow/green pair and the pink/purple pair) and long hair under various headbands, Agassi transformed tennis from a typically stuffy sport for the uptight elite into a pound-the-ball, rock-n-roll spectacle with a racket.
At times, this match was truly painful for me to watch. Here was Andre Agassi, the epitome of energetic, hard-hitting tennis as I learned and grew to love the game, struggling to get to several balls or reach high enough to clear most first serves due to his aging back. His upset victory over 8th-seeded Marcos Baghdatis on Thursday night was truly one of the classic tennis matches of the modern era, and as great as it was to see Agassi pull it out, something told me he wasn't going to have much left in the tank to continue this run through his final tournament. Perhaps the extra day off from rain caused him to stiffen up a bit as well, who knows. What I do know is that I saw Andre looks his best ... and his worst ... all in a 72-hour period. It was an emotional ride this week, Andre - enough to make grown men cry (raise your hand if you didn't swell up after this loss and his Lou Gehrig-like final speech to the adoring crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium, I dare you).
Andre Agassi used to tell us that "image is everything." Though he grew out of that marketing campaign and into a more strategic skill/finesse player as he got older, here's one lasting image that is ... everything:
Thank you, Andre.
-Iceman
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