Even in Losing, Agassi Is Unpredictable

It’s difficult to assess what’s happening with Andre Agassi and how a player of his caliber would allow himself to neglect his professional life as he has this season.

Agassi has won only two matches in three months, but there is no shame in losing, only having not tried. That’s Agassi’s crime, if it can be said to be criminal to abdicate a professional responsibility.

As a man who feels the need to re-create himself every few years or so, this rough patch may be viewed as yet another instance of Agassi shedding his skin, to re-emerge fresh and altogether different.

It could also be that Agassi is bored with the monotony of tennis and is caught up in the whirlwind of his engagement to Brooke Shields. Agassi’s loss to qualifier Doug Flach here was shocking and the talk of the tournament.

Here are some comments from players and coaches, speculating on Agassi’s malaise.

Former coach Nick Bollettieri: “Andre will always be unpredictable. Sure, he’s made a good run with [Coach] Brad [Gilbert]. He made a good run with me, winning the Wimbledon title. But I don’t think he knows where he’s going right now, and I’m not sure Brad does, either.

“Andre has great talent, but he doesn’t always know what to do with it. Is he physically fit, thinking about the marriage? Who knows what’s going through his mind?”

Pete Sampras: “It’s surprising, because I think he’s kind of like me in a way. He puts a lot of his emphasis on the major titles. It seems like his mind really isn’t where it should be. We all know he has the talent to get it back. He just needs to get his mind straight and start working.”

Michael Stich, on whether Agassi can come back from this slump: “I don’t know, but I know what happened to me when I was well and playing really well in ’93. Things happened that you can’t keep up that level for three or four years. There’s only one guy who does that right now and that’s Pete [Sampras]. He’s a better all-around player than Andre, and I think that gets him through bad matches. Pete loses matches he shouldn’t lose, but he always comes back. He’s mentally very strong.

“With Andre, I don’t know what is happening with him, but definitely he’s not feeling very good about himself and about playing tennis right now. I think that’s just a normal thing that happens to every top-10 player I can remember.”

Todd Martin: “Andre’s situation is just more extreme than most of ours. A lot of us go through a period of three or four weeks where we’re very on and feel very good, excited to step on the court every time we practice. Then we’ll hit a week or two when it’s just a lull. I think Andre has really fallen out of his rhythm completely. . . . I don’t know how much he’s enjoying what he’s doing right now. I think for this long period of time it’s got to be difficult. I’m sure, in part, he’s really upset about it and disappointed, and in part anxious to get going in the summer, to go back to what he’s most comfortable with--the hard courts.

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Next week’s Fed Cup matches will carry more than their usual interest, which isn’t saying too much.

Two matches carry special interest: Spain plays France and the United States plays Japan, both fraught with subtext.

Spain has won four of the last five Fed Cup titles and the Spanish Federation knows that in order to win again, the team needs the services of Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Conchita Martinez. The two players know that too.

That’s one of the reasons that the two leveraged themselves into a better deal with the federation, giving them more money for playing and a deal structured so that they too will benefit if Spain wins the title.

The negotiations were fierce and went on until the last moment: Sanchez Vicario and Martinez agreed to play late Tuesday night, and the teams were named Wednesday.

The U.S. team is vulnerable. Chanda Rubin, who played in the last Fed Cup match, is still nursing a wrist injury and will not play. Mary Joe Fernandez, who injured her back at Wimbledon, has been replaced on the team by the woman who beat her here, Meredith McGrath, although McGrath played the entire tournament with a heavily bandaged leg. Monica Seles will be playing, but she still has a dodgy shoulder. Lindsay Davenport is injury-free, so far.

Seles is the interesting piece. If she plays, it will be the first time she has represented a country in international competition. She never played Fed Cup when she was a citizen of Yugoslavia, nor has she as an American citizen.

It became a sticking point when Seles was named to the U.S. Olympic team. The rules required Seles to make herself available for Fed Cup in order to be eligible for the Olympics. She did, but injuries intervened and Seles never played. Her Olympic teammates have let it be known that they would look favorably upon Seles if she plays in Japan and would take her participation as a sign of good faith.

Seles says she will play--a sponsor contract requires her to be in Japan a certain number of times a year, and that will no doubt add incentive.