Agassi Shows Who’s Boss by Rocking Stich in Final : Tennis: American rolls over German, 6-1, 7-6 (7-5), 7-5, to become only third unseeded player to win U.S. Open men’s title.

It was Woodstock at Flushing Meadow on Sunday, when the rock star of the racket world, Andre Agassi, won the U.S. Open men’s singles title.

Groupies of all ages gawked and gushed, and that was before Agassi beat Germany’s Michael Stich, 6-1, 7-6 (7-5), 7-5, before an adoring Stadium Court crowd of 21,063 at the U.S. Tennis Center.

A full hour before Agassi took the court for the grand finale of this year’s final Grand Slam event, the tennis paparazzi started building a human tunnel from the players’ locker room area to the stadium entrance. He was their Springsteen, and any kind of firsthand moment would be a lifetime memory.

And when he had quickly strolled through their midst, finished a dissection of Stich’s serve-and-volley game in 1 hour 56 minutes and picked up his check for $550,000, the adoration continued, this time by grown men in suits and ties. Bumpy Frazier, president of the U.S. Tennis Assn., doing some postmatch presentations, called Agassi “the most popular tennis player in the world.” Another executive named Tom Eastwood, handing out checks on behalf of a sponsoring automobile company, said Agassi’s victory had been a “wow.” CBS ran out of time before they got to the “gollys.”

The show went on well after the match ended. After Stich and Agassi, they brought actress Brooke Shields into the interview room. Agassi’s girlfriend, who got more television time during the tournament than 95% of the players, told the notebook crowd that she and Agassi were introduced by saxophonist Kenny G’s wife and that Agassi was giving her tennis lessons. She also said that she and Agassi wrote letters to each other for quite awhile before they actually met. Andre the pen pal. Inquiring minds wanted to know.

Agassi did write some new entries in the record book with his masterful tournament and masterful performance Sunday. By beating Stich, he became the third unseeded player to win the U.S. Open men’s title, after Mal Anderson in 1957 and Fred Stolle in 1966. He also was the second man, after Vic Seixas in 1954, to beat five seeded players in the U.S. Open, taking out No. 12 Wayne Ferreira, No. 6 Michael Chang, No. 13 Thomas Muster, No. 9 Todd Martin and No. 4 Stich.

Agassi also became the third player to win the men’s title after going out in the first round the previous year. Agassi’s ranking, No. 20 before the tournament after he underwent wrist surgery late last year and slipped down the ladder because of inactivity, will be back to No. 9 this morning, when the computer rankings become official. It will be the first time since May of ’93 that Agassi, a five-year fixture in the top 10 previous to that, will be back in that select group. Stich, who entered the tournament at No. 4, will be No. 2.

The No. 2 ranking for Stich could mark the first time that a player has gone that high on the computer without having a backhand. Sunday’s match left the impression that Stich was a player possessing two Achilles’ tendons and one Achilles’ heel, his backhand.

Of Stich’s 48 unforced errors--Agassi made an amazingly low 14--30 came on his backhand side. As the match wore on, mothers sitting with their families in the end seats were covering their children’s heads every time Agassi hit to Stich’s backhand. Agassi made it into a surgical procedure. A couple of quick cuts, a few sutures and it was over. Stich’s backhand was sewed up, and so was the match.

Stich ended the second-set tiebreaker by slicing a backhand serve return softly into the net, about halfway up. Stich suffered the key service break at 5-5 of the third set when he blooped a soft backhand volley short to Agassi, who passed him on the backhand side. Agassi, serving for the match at 6-5, got to match point when Stich netted a backhand, then won on match point by serving to Stich’s backhand, hitting his approach shot to Stich’s backhand and then scooping the short ball he got back into the German’s deep forehand corner, where Stich couldn’t reach it.

Asked afterward about it, Stich said the windy conditions caused him to struggle with his backhand. He implied that he didn’t really see a backhand failure as much as an Agassi success.

“He’s just a great player, that’s about it,” Stich said.

A real measure of Agassi’s greatness came in the first set, in which the 24-year-old from Las Vegas wasted no time in rolling the dice. He had three aces, no double faults, 77% of his first serves in, three of four break-point opportunities converted, only three unforced errors and five winners at the net in five approaches.

The set, ending when Stich double faulted, took 24 minutes and Agassi summed it up perfectly.

“I just got off to an incredible start,” he said.

Not only was it incredible, but terribly telling for Stich, had he been aware that Agassi had a 48-0 record when he won the first two sets in past Grand Slam events.

When it was over and Agassi had weaved his baseline magic for a worldwide television audience, he dropped his racket and collapsed to his knees near the net. He stayed that way until Stich walked around the net, lifted him and congratulated him. Finally, still looking dazed, Agassi found Shields in the crowd and went to her for a long hug and kiss. It was theater at its finest: the actress, her leading man and 500 cameras.

Then it was off to the awards ceremony, the posed trophy photos, and the walks around the court and waves to the adoring fans, all leading to the guys in suits and ties drooling over him on national TV.

And Agassi earned every bit of that, capturing New York like perhaps only Jimmy Connors had before, and admitting that, except for his Wimbledon title in 1992, this was as good as it gets.

For one brief shining moment in Flushing Meadow, he had it all. His second Grand Slam title, the climax of a huge career comeback, and all right in his home country’s main tennis event. After all, he was born in the USA. Just like Springsteen.

U.S. Open Notes

Arantxa Sanchez Vicario made the U.S. Open a $650,000 payday when she teamed with Jana Novotna to win the women’s doubles final over Katerina Maleeva and Robin White, 6-3, 6-3. Sanchez Vicario had won $550,000 for her women’s singles title and she and Novotna split $200,000 for the doubles. . . . Meilen Tu of Northridge completed her impressive run to the junior girls’ singles title with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over top-seeded Martina Hinges, a 13-year-old sensation from Switzerland, who will turn pro when she turns 14 in two months. . . . Total attendance for the two-week event was 529,687, largest for any tennis event held anywhere.