Even His Funny Girl Fan Doesn’t Give Agassi a Lift

His hair, his cap, his wrist, his racket, his friend--yes, just about your total Andre Agassi package was at Wimbledon.

Well, say goodby to it.

It was great fun, but it was just one of those . . . no, somebody else sings that. How about, “Memory?” Agassi became one at Wimbledon on Wednesday.

And as soon as Agassi’s reign as Wimbledon champion was ended, Barbra Streisand, sitting with Agassi’s friends in a box at Centre Court, put on her white sailor hat with the little anchor on the front.

Clearly, it was time to shove off.

Streisand cut her Greek isles vacation about as short as the hair on Andre’s chest, so she could be courtside and watch her unique “Zen master” perform his special pony-tailed magic against Pete Sampras in the quarterfinals.

It was a poor day for Zen. Sampras ignored a sore shoulder and strode past Agassi, 6-2, 6-2, 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, to reach the semifinals against Boris Becker, who won a 4-hour 15-minute competition of nerve against countryman Michael Stich, 7-5, 6-7 (7-5), 6-7 (7-5), 6-2, 6-4.

Stich missed all nine of his break-point chances. Becker scored the key service break for 2-1 in the fifth set when Stich double-faulted, one of 13 double faults by Stich.

“It was one of the best matches I’ve ever played at Wimbledon,” said Becker, who needed three match points to put Stich away.

“I didn’t lose my focus, my concentration, once in the match. I think that was the difference.”

For Becker, it was revenge on grass. Stich, who beat Becker in the quarterfinals at Queens Club in London, swept Becker in the 1991 Wimbledon final.

Jim Courier and Stefan Edberg will meet in the other semifinal after knocking out overmatched opponents in straightforward quarterfinals.

Courier rolled sometimes-practice partner Todd Martin, 6-2, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, and Edberg had an even easier time defeating France’s Cedric Pioline, 7-5, 7-5, 6-3.

Edberg survived a second-set scare, when he trailed, 4-0.

“I lost track a little bit,” he said.

Courier said he is relaxed, which is about as normal for him at a Grand Slam tournament as playing without a cap.

“I think that that’s probably in a large part due to people not taking me that seriously,” he said. “Everybody else seems to think that I’m playing really well. I kind of keep shrugging and saying ‘I’m still playing.’ ”

Nothing was easy for Sampras. He played through doubts and the pain of tendinitis in his shoulder, which hurt when he served.

He sure didn’t look injured in the first two sets, which he collected in 61 minutes, finishing off both by hammering an ace down the middle of the court.

Agassi couldn’t keep up. He blamed a slow start.

“I felt like I was just a hair off,” he said with a straight face amid gales of laughter in the interview room.

But Agassi caught up in a hurry. He broke Sampras early in both the third and fourth sets and began to prosper when Sampras began to think.

Sampras said the problem was in his head as much as his shoulder.

“I started thinking about it,” Sampras said. “But it was something I could definitely play through. I told myself to suck it up, to hang in there. It was more mental than anything.”

And so they moved to the fifth set, where everything got crazy in a hurry.

Sampras blew two break points in the first game, then scored a service break for 2-1. Agassi broke back when Sampras double-faulted. Sampras broke again for 3-2 when Agassi launched a backhand cross-court too wide.

By now, Agassi was reeling. Despite exhortations from Streisand, who pumped her fists, stomped her feet, shouted, clapped and did everything short of singing him a tune, Agassi simply didn’t have it.

“You know, what it boils down to is there are a lot of nerves when it gets down to the fifth set,” Agassi said.

Sampras offered pretty much the same assessment, suggesting that Agassi’s nerve endings might have been a little frayed at that point.

“I knew he was going to get a little tighter,” Sampras said.

Agassi saved two match points, serving in the eighth game, but he was only delaying the inevitable.

Sampras served for the match with new balls, which he put to good use. His first serve was an ace to the backhand side. His next serve was an ace down the middle. His next serve was another ace, his 22nd, to the backhand.

At 40-0, triple match point, the only question remaining was whether Agassi’s racket would touch the ball again before the end of the match.

It did, once, blooping a second serve wide to end it once and for all. While Sampras walked off secure in the knowledge that he is going on to Friday’s semifinals, all that was left was for Agassi to wave to the crowd, Streisand included, as they cheered him wildly on his way out.

Agassi fielded a few questions about his relationship with the 51-year-old singer-actress.

Streisand is a “close friend,” Agassi said.

“You know, to say that we are like just friends, you know, I don’t know everybody’s definition of ‘friends’ is,” Agassi said. “So I like to say she’s my version of a friend.”

For some reason, Sampras doesn’t have too many friends in the British press. He was asked how it felt to be the most unpopular man at Wimbledon.

“I don’t feel bad that I beat Andre,” Sampras said, almost sheepishly.

Wimbledon Notes

Experts say anything can happen on grass courts, which is probably the best that Conchita Martinez and Jana Novotna can hope for, because neither one has beaten today’s semifinal opponents. Martinez is 0-7 against Steffi Graf and Novotna is 0-7 against Martina Navratilova. Neither Graf nor Navratilova have lost a set in five matches at this tournament. . . . Graf, who is 50-4 at Wimbledon, has lost to only six players in Grand Slam events since she won her first Grand Slam tournament at the 1987 French Open--Navratilova (three times), Arantxa Sanchez Vicario (three), Monica Seles (two), Zina Garrison-Jackson (once), Novotna (once) and Gabriela Sabatini (once). Martinez, who is playing in her second Wimbledon, has never been a Grand Slam tournament semifinalist. This will be the 25th for Graf. . . . Navratilova and Novotna have met once on grass, and Novotna stretched her to three sets at Eastbourne in 1990.