Champions Cup at Indian Wells : Noah Outperforms Agassi in 7-5, 6-4 Win

When Yannick Noah, the flamboyant Frenchman, crossed rackets with Andre Agassi, who works his side of the net like a lounge act, they produced a match on which a tennis court seemed strangely inadequate.

This needed to be seen on a stage, not on pavement; instead of a net, there should have been an orchestra pit.

“It’s a show, it’s a game,” Noah said.

It’s tennis the way few play it, other than the dreadlocked Noah and the blonde-maned Agassi, who served and volleyed and joked and sent each other sprawling in 1 hour 32 minutes of entertainment that should have been taped for a miniseries.

Until Friday, Noah and Agassi had never played each other, but their rematch will be swift in coming at the United States-France Davis Cup matches next month.

This time, Noah prevailed. He won, 7-5, 6-4, the beneficiary of a generous Agassi, who said he has already formed a plan for their next encounter:

“I’ll aim for his hair more often,” Agassi said.

Of course, not everything was fun and games Friday in the quarterfinals of the Newsweek Champions Cup. Consider the case of Brad Gilbert, who lost in an underhanded fashion.

Actually, it was all on the up and up, which was usually the direction of his serves. Gilbert had to serve sidearmed and once underhanded because of a pulled stomach muscle, and he lost, 6-4, 6-4, to Jay Berger, who meets Noah in the second semifinal today.

Gilbert, who said he could have easily defaulted, wore a huge bandage on his stomach as he walked onto the court, and it caught Berger’s attention.

“I asked him if that’s where I was supposed to hit him,” Berger said.

The first semifinal will send the apparently ageless Jimmy Connors against Miloslav Mecir, who finally hit a ball Michael Chang couldn’t get on match point in a 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 victory. Connors, 36, made 75% of his first serves against Tim Mayotte to win, 6-3, 6-3.

“That was pretty darned good, for me,” Connors said.

The winner of 107 tournaments, Connors said, well, he isn’t counting anymore.

“I’d like to add a few more notches before I stop.”

Mecir survived a third-set drought during which he lost four straight games after winning the first three. The streaky set ended with Mecir winning the last three.

On match point, Mecir angled a forehand into the corner, which looked like a clear winner until Chang unloaded a forehand that startled Mecir, who was standing there flatfooted.

“I thought the ball was finished and I find it underneath my knees,” Mecir said.

But Mecir was able to return Chang’s forehand into the same corner by angling a volley that Chang simply could not reach. Afterward, Mecir mixed thanks with philosophy.

“It is difficult to hit winners when the other guy is faster,” he said.

However, the match of the day was Noah-Agassi. The outcome turned on set point in the first set, when Agassi gave away the point by telling chair umpire Jim Zimmerman he hit a service return wide.

Zimmerman had overruled a linesman and called it in, which prompted Noah to argue, but then Agassi approached the chair. He took the umpire’s microphone and addressed the crowd.

“Some of you might have seen it good,” he told the sellout crowd of 10,500 at Hyatt Grand Champions. “I saw it wide. It would be tough for me to take a point if it was out.”

With that, Noah had won the first set, and Agassi retreated to the baseline showered with applause.

Agassi lost the second set, too, but that’s show business.

Examples:

--Noah punches a volley winner. He duckwalks across the court and throws his racket. Agassi throws his racket, too. The crowd loves it.

--Agassi fires a forehand just over Noah’s head.

Said Agassi: “That ball almost messed up your hair, Yannick.”

Said Noah: “You’re not the only one that can talk about hair.”

The crowd goes wild.

--Noah dives twice to hit volleys, then wins the point on a third volley. Agassi flops flat on his back. Noah goes to sit in the shade. The crowd goes wild again.

--Noah wins a point with another volley. Agassi says, “I hate you.” The crowd gets really wild.

Besides the histrionics, Noah played magnificently. Even U.S. Davis Cup Coach Tom Gorman agreed.

“I don’t think Noah has played that well throughout a match for a long while,” said Gorman, who thought Noah’s performance was worthy of a top-three player.

“It was almost flawless,” he said. “That was the match of the tournament.”