U.S. OPEN : N.Y. Toasts Agassi--He’ll Play Stich

Super Saturday was pretty much an ordinary day for Andre Agassi and Michael Stich, routine winners of U.S. Open semifinals here.

On a day when the women’s final stole the show, Agassi fashioned a workmanlike 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory over Todd Martin and Stich beat Karel Novacek, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4). In both matches, it was the expected outcome, even though Agassi entered this tournament unseeded.

By beating the ninth-seeded Martin, Agassi became the first unseeded player in the 114-year history of the U.S. men’s singles championships to beat four seeded players in one year. And if he beats fourth-seeded Stich today, the 24-year-old from Las Vegas will be the second player to beat five seeded players in one year. The last unseeded player to reach a final here was Jan Kodes of Czechoslovakia, who lost to Stan Smith in 1971, and the last unseeded player to win was Fred Stolle in 1966.

Agassi, a top-10 player for five consecutive years before a wrist injury in 1993 forced him down the rankings and into the 20s coming into this event, dominated Martin and made it look as if he could break the former Northwestern University star at will.

“Today was definitely all business for me,” Agassi said. “I did what I needed to do, from start to finish, and there is a good feeling in that.”

Agassi also said that there was a good feeling in becoming the toast of the town in New York, a city where, most often, they’d rather just spill the glass on you.

“I owe a lot to the New York fans. They got me through,” he said.

He also said, “ . . . The greatest thing now is when you step out on that (Stadium Court), I feel like it is my arena.”

In two weeks of this tournament, Agassi’s celebrity, always huge, has exploded. Once a town car here, he is now a stretch limo. Well after his match, the path from the stadium to the players’ locker room was lined five deep with people waiting to catch a glimpse of the man who plays in black socks and tennis shoes that look like spats, and wears his long bleached hair hanging down over a double-earring in his left ear and a single loop in his right.

“Andre’s coming, Andre’s coming,” was the whisper.

Agassi, once not quite able to get a handle on all this, does much better now. When asked in a postmatch TV interview about his current girlfriend, actress Brooke Shields, who appeared to be in danger of falling out of her dress as she celebrated match point for all the strategically aimed television cameras Saturday, Agassi replied: “Oh, did she show up again today?”

Even Martin, the 6-foot-6 tower of tennis power from East Lansing, Mich., whose bland image fairly well parallels the reality, felt compelled to discuss Andre the idol.

“The guy is a superstar,” Martin said. “He can dress up in goofy clothes on TV and make commercials and people still like him. And you know, what I’m finding out, is that he’s really not a bad guy.”

Stich, Agassi’s opponent today, feels the same way, mostly because of a possible edge it could give him in the final.

“I am happy to be the underdog,” he said. “Andre, I think now, everybody expects him to win.”

Stich served 14 aces against Novacek, of the Czech Republic, and converted a 62% first-serve mark and 49 of 74 successful net rushes into a 1-hour 49-minute cruise.

“Michael was playing his serve-and-volley,” Novacek said, “so I didn’t ever get a chance to get any kind of rhythm to my game. He would serve and I would hit maybe one, two shots and both were just reflexes on returns of big serves.”

Stich ended the match fittingly by serving a 119-m.p.h. ace.

Agassi ended his fittingly, pounding a forehand winner from the backcourt.

Today, that is exactly how their match is expected to go. And if both are on their games, it could bring a final that turns out super, even if it’s a day late for the TV hype.

Notes

Meilen Tu of Northridge, the 16-year-old from Granada Hills High, reached today’s final of the junior girls’ event here, scoring a 7-5, 6-4 victory over Kim de Weille of the Netherlands Saturday. Tu, who is seeded fourth, will play the much-discussed Martina Hinges of Switzerland, the top-seeded player. Hinges is a few months away from turning 14, but she already has an agent from IMG and a couple of endorsements from clothing companies. Hinges will turn pro as soon as she turns 14.