A CROWD PLEASER : Andre Agassi, 18, Is Enjoying Tennis and Is a Joy to Watch

You think Andre Agassi is a tennis phenom at 18? What would you have thought when he was a baby, just learning to walk, tilting about the Las Vegas household with his own shaved-down racket and giving salt shakers and ashtrays two-fisted forehands through the picture window?

You would have thought he was either a tennis phenom or a very bad boy is what you would have thought.

Nearly 18 years later, tennis phenom seems to be the handle of choice. His punk haircut and denim shorts--as far as the tennis Establishment is concerned, he may as well outfit himself in leathers--might lead some to hold out for a mischievous side. There is that.

But with two tournament victories in successive weeks, a forehand John McEnroe called the hardest he ever saw, a near top-10 ranking, a 16-1 record on clay, including Monday’s opening-round win in the French Open--well, he’s a phenom for the purposes of this story.

Of course, the contributing factor in Agassi’s critical and commercial ascendancy, from prospect to phenom, is the void left by the likes of Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, the last U.S. players to hold the top ranking in world tennis. Understand that most people’s awareness of tennis in this country began with the boom in the early-70s, when Connors just happened to emerge as the best in the world. And then, blurring over Bjorn Borg, McEnroe came along. Most people think world tennis means U.S. tennis.

“So, now there’s this sense of panic in the United States,” says Robert Lansdorp, who has coached a phenom or two in his time. Remember Tracy Austin? “They’re looking for the new hope. And everybody who shows some success . . . “ Remember Jimmy Arias? Aaron Krickstein?

The tennis experts will remind you. And they caution not to be taken in by this explosive talent, this likable kid with the pile o’ hair, this next No. 1 player. He’s just 18!

“Talk to me after two years,” says Arthur Ashe, when asked to anoint Andre the giant. Yet, the tennis experts inevitably fall to the task and, yes, anoint him anyway. Their caution aside, they’ve already been taken in.

“He’s got an unbelievable amount of charisma. Very, very electrifying, a real crowd-pleaser,” says Charlie Pasarell, who watched him play in his Newsweek Champions Cup at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort in Indian Wells this year, extending Boris Becker in the semifinals.

“Number 1? Obviously he has yet to prove himself. He’s yet to win a Grand Slam event, which would be a great indication. Yet I personally think he will. If this was a bet, that he’d be in the top 3-4 players in the world, I’d take it.”

Davis Cup Coach Tom Gorman, who had earlier taken Agassi to Peru for team play, says, “I wouldn’t want to look into a crystal ball, but he sure is making all the right moves in all the right directions.”

Ivan Lendl, who happens to be the No. 1 player, said this in advance of the French Open: “He could be the superstar Americans are dying for.”

To be sure, he does have a way to go. His serve is a little rough, he needs more work at the net and his stamina is not yet big league. But his progress, over 18 months on the pro tour, has been so spectacular that it is difficult not to be hopeful.

He was ranked No. 91 after 1986, No. 25 after 1987, and was No. 12 two weeks ago after winning the U.S. Clay Court Championships and the Tournament of Champions on consecutive weekends. And he had won the U.S. Indoors earlier.

Put that on graph paper and see where he’s pointed.

Aside from his rise, there is the matter of his comportment on the court. Or even off it. It is impossible to discuss Agassi with anybody who has come across him without running into this: “And he’s just the nicest kid.”

Although he bombed out of the Italian Open last week, he won over the Roman crowd with his sportsmanship. Fans accustomed to a U.S. player bellowing over each lost point were stunned to see this kid clapping his racket at his opponent’s winning shots.

It is strictly a measure of his personality that Agassi was the center of attention at the final of the tournament. After all, he had been ousted two days earlier.

“He’s delightful and refreshing,” agrees Ashe. “He obviously believes he’s part entertainer as well as part athlete, the way he likes to interact with the crowd. And I don’t think it’s affected. I like it a lot. I just love it.”

Pasarell says: “He creates a tremendous amount of enthusiasm, and in a stylish way. He’s a great showman and a great sportsman.”

This last is no small point. Agassi is either a calculating kid or just lucky in his timing, coming along, as he has, at a time when McEnroe’s antics are no longer thought cute, when folks are ready for some center-court graciousness.

And is Agassi ever gracious! Agassi, who has made his revitalized spiritual life a topic off the court, seems to practice the gospel on it.

“You don’t have to argue every point,” says Pasarell, kindly.

Agassi, who has acquired a Corvette and a coif in the last year, is not exactly an overnight sensation. He has been preparing for this almost from birth, ordained by a tennis fanatic from Iran, who happened to be his dad.

Mike Agassi, the showroom captain at the Bally Grand in Las Vegas, picked up the game at an American mission church in Iran, where there were two dirt courts. At the age of 9 he used to water and roll them and play ball boy while the American soldiers squeezed in a game. He squeezed in a few games himself.

To give you a better idea of his fanaticism, when he got to Chicago in 1952, he became a fixture on the public courts. In the winter. “We’d start shoveling at 7 a.m.,” he says. “By 11 it would be ready. Of course we had no net . . . “

The elder Agassi knew he had to get to sunnier climes. He meant to land in Los Angeles--”because it was tennis country”--but couldn’t find work. He got as far as Las Vegas, where there were work and sunshine.

So did he push Andre into the game?

“Well, let’s put it this way. When the kid was born, as soon as he could see, I hang a tennis ball and racket over his crib. This was for eye coordination. So that was the beginning.

“As soon as he could sit in a high chair, I gave him a Ping-Pong paddle and hung a balloon from strings, so he could swing at it. That was for eye-hand coordination.

“When he was walking in a walker, I gave him a tennis racket, full size. We had to take all the objects, like salt shakers, out of the house. He’d take it with his racket, and it would go through the window.”

Now, this was when he was 4?

“No, no, this was when he was walking. At 3, I was teaching him strokes. I put him on a one-handed forehand then. I had made some mistakes teaching his older brother a two-handed stroke at that age . . . “

The thing is, for every nine kids this kind of childhood drives to a psychiatrist, there is one who blossoms. Agassi appears to be that one.

“He just thought this was the greatest thing in the world,” Dad says. “Whatever I said, he did.”

Agassi used up the local competition quickly, so Dad packed him off to Nick Bollettieri’s camp in Florida.

“At 10, I got a hold of Nick. ‘I’m sending you a kid that loves tennis and lives tennis. He just needs lots of games,’ which he provided.”

The father recognized the expense as an investment in the future.

“I saw something in that kid, something nobody had. He would invent shots. He would imitate. Just by saying the name, Connors or McEnroe, he would imitate their shots.”

So far, though, he seems an original. Ashe says there may be other prospects out there. “But this kid is capable of explosive shot-making. And he hits the ball on rise, which is a rare talent.

Gorman adds: “He’s got great movement, great footwork, great eyesight and, of course, that big weapon, the forehand. He’s also willing and wanting and able to listen, to work at it. That’s what’s always seemed so great about him. He has this air of confidence which you observe in champions.”

Until he becomes that champion, there are the usual qualifications. Ashe likens his current success to the rookie’s first swing through a baseball league. “Next time through the league is when he proves he can play.”

Too few of the young tennis sensations prove that. Injuries and perhaps unreal expectations took their toll on previous phenoms, Arias and Krickstein, who were also Bollettieri prodigies. It is tempting to suggest that Agassi could develop into a similar flash in the pan.

“Agassi has more going for him,” says Lansdorp. “He’s quicker, has a better backhand than either and, I hate to say, he’s smarter. But he does have this enthusiasm. You can almost see it in his eyes that he wants to be No. 1.

“Krickstein never looked like a guy who wanted to be No. 1. He has more drive than Krickstein, maybe even Arias, though I hate to say it. It’s very, very hard. People think tennis is easy. Well it is great to be No. 10. There’s no pressure and still great amounts of money. But to go beyond that, to take that beating . . . “

That is a threshold Agassi has yet to approach, much less cross. Still, some think this is the one built for a long run.

Bollettieri told World Tennis that there are “major differences in the three.”

Agassi is being groomed to handle the physical demands, more than the others were. His workouts are not only on the tennis court but off it, where he is doing weight training and even running through tires, football player-style. He is not being rushed either. Agassi will forgo Wimbledon until his game is more complete.

But surviving the grind of the tour and the weight of high expectations is more mental than physical. In this respect, the experts are encouraged.

“What I expect out of Andre, I’ve already seen,” says Gorman. “Down in Peru, I saw a player who is accepting the challenge (to be No. 1). He is driven, and driven in the right direction.”

Ashe adds: “In the meantime, he is fun to watch.”

Fans at the French Open are already delighted. Monday, in a straight-sets victory over Paolo Cane, he entertained the crowd by playfully wagging his finger at a line judge and just generally having a good time.

“You have just two ways you can come across, negative or positive,” he said afterward. “And I’d like to come across positive, especially to the young kids.”

That brings us to that pile o’ hair. An act of rebellion? A move to Jim McMahon’s outrageous turf? Is that what we want our young kids to see?

His father says the 2-tone tufts are all in fun, and fun only.

“I ask him about it,” he says, clearly not delighted with the Hagler-in-reverse haircut. “And he said, ‘Dad, I know someday I’m gonna be bald like you. Now that I have hair . . . ‘ “

While he has hair, anyway, he is fun to watch.