Agassi, Tennis Need Each Other

Every time I used to look at Andre Agassi, I would think of Eddie Stanky. You remember. The ballplayer of whom Leo Durocher once said, “He can’t run, he can’t hit, he can’t throw. All he does is beat you.”

Then Agassi won Wimbledon, and I realized I had misjudged him. This was no good-field, no-hit banjo artist. This was a tenacious, dangerous, superbly skilled player who would take a lot of beating.

His on-court demeanor was intimidating. On court, his eyes were cruel, merciless, the eyes of a dictator. They had no interest in you whatsoever. You were a statistic, not an opponent.

From a distance, he appeared dislikable. He let his hair grow, his beard grow. He refused to tuck his shirt in, to wear white or do any of the things tennis used to make you do. He’d wear a tank top if he felt like it.

He was a rebel, but that had become kind of boring. Today, who isn’t? He didn’t appear to care whether you liked him or not so long as you gave him the line calls.

Oddly enough, he didn’t seem to particularly care for his line of work. He dispatched opponents with the ruthless efficiency of a contract killer. When he got ahead of you, you were usually done for. He never really displayed a lot of emotion. It was unfortunate, but you were in his way. He was passionate, but not compassionate.

The public was fascinated by him. The groupies, of course, adored him. He managed to look cute in his kind of hyperactive way. But about the only concession he would make to the fans was, he would throw his sweaty shirt into a crowd of shrieking young girls at the end of a (winning) match.

Madison Avenue cottoned to him. He was not your monotonous serve-and-volley player. Two-shots-and-the-point’s-over. His matches were brawls, not recitals. Cockfights. Not your basic, “Nice shot, Grizzy!” type of politesse.

He almost never lost his composure. Not for him the McEnroe or Nastase tantrums. He got even with a backhand down the line, not a stream of curses.

He hurried everywhere. No one ever saw him saunter, stroll or even sit still very long. He always looked like a guy running for a bus. He came on court like a whirling gust of woodpeckers. He never stood still a moment. His eyes darted around. He was in a hurry. He seemed to want to get it over with one way or the other. He had more important things to do.

Tennis had to respect him. He lost with a shrug. Sometimes, he won with a shrug too. He never seemed to change expressions much either way.

If he wasn’t quite the image they wanted, he was a magnificent athlete. Charlie Pasarell, no less, thinks Agassi’s hand-eye coordination was such that he almost never hit the ball anywhere but in the middle of the racket. He hit the ball exactly where he wanted to, most of the time. Usually, it was some place you had just left.

It was a funny thing, but he always appeared smaller than he was. He wasn’t small. He was just a shade under six feet. But his legs were not long, nor his arms. He scurried around the court like a chipmunk; he didn’t have the reach of those long-legged Tildens of yesteryear. But when the ball came down, he was, like DiMaggio, usually there waiting for it.

After winning Wimbledon--in 1992--his interest in the game seemed to begin to wane. He appeared overweight, listless. At times, not even competitive.

He had not come up through the traditional knotted-white-sweater, tea-between-sets atmosphere of tennis. Dad was a casino executive in Las Vegas, and young Andre was on the court very early and with much expected.

He was explaining the other night during the Newsweek Champions Cup at the Grand Champions resort here that he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Someone put a tennis racket in his hands almost in his infancy. “I was packed off to a tennis camp when I was 13,” he said. “I didn’t have too many other options.”

But last year, a sobering thing happened to Andre Agassi. His right wrist gave in to tendinitis. There was an operation. He suddenly couldn’t play tennis at all.

And he found, somewhat to his surprise, that he missed it. That he was right where he belonged all the while. He fell in the rankings. At 23, he was yesterday’s roses. Not bad news, no news. He wasn’t a burnout, he was a flameout.

It wasn’t St. Paul falling off a horse, but it was a revelation. “I realized tennis is part of who I am,” he said. “I realized tennis was me. That tennis was something I did, something I wanted to do, something I needed. My profession is very important to me now.”

He bought a gym, lost weight, skipped fast foods, trained like a prizefighter. A sleek, new, streamlined Agassi hustled onto the court here this week and it seemed like old times. Vintage Agassi. Although his own serve rarely exceeded 99 m.p.h., he easily returned 110-m.p.h. serves of his opponent. He easily dispatched Richey Reneberg, and visions of the Wimbledon championship began to dance in the heads.

He went before the press and termed his hiatus a “blessing in disguise,” a turning point in his career. He added: “I am focused now.”

Tennis was ready to circle the wagons. Agassi was back and better than ever.

Or was he?

Alas! Tennis being tennis, Agassi went out the next afternoon to play a journeyman--99th in the world--named Fabrice Santoro, a guy with no Wimbledon in his past--nor probably in his future.

He beat Agassi in straight sets, 6-4, 7-6. This is bad news to the tournament--and the game. It’s nice to know Agassi now knows he needs tennis--because the game sure needs him.