A Few Words From Agassi Mean Volumes to Mamiit

At least Andre Agassi did not go quietly this time, not the way he slipped away at the Australian Open against Vince Spadea.

Three strikes--make that three uses of a certain word--and he was gone from the Sybase Open in San Jose. Agassi, up a set, was defaulted from his second-round match last Wednesday night against qualifier Cecil Mamiit of Los Angeles and subsequently fined.

You could look at it two ways: Agassi is still feisty and was given a quick hook by overreacting officials, or his outburst is a reaction to declining skills.

Obviously, the immediate focus was on Agassi and the loss of a marquee name in San Jose. It was the second time in his career he was ejected from a tournament for the use of obscenities. In 1996, he was tossed at Indianapolis when playing Canada’s Daniel Nestor.

But what of the guy on the other side of the net in San Jose?

When the scene unfolded, Mamiit was up 5-0 in the second-set tiebreaker. He was trying to maintain his focus and composure through three interruptions as the linesman trotted over to the chair umpire to report Agassi’s transgressions.

The ATP supervisor was summoned and the match was over.

“My first thought was, ‘This is not happening. It can’t end up like this,’ ” Mamiit said in a telephone interview. “I did not want that to happen, but what could I do? I had no idea what was going on.”

There isn’t exactly a primer on what to do when your opponent is defaulted. Mamiit, 22, had never reached an ATP quarterfinal in his brief pro career, but he wasn’t about to raise the roof.

“I was geared up three years for a match like that,” he said. “I . . . didn’t want to be disrespectful to Andre. People were booing. I had mixed emotions. It was mind-boggling to everybody.”

He had a request of the chair umpire, saying, “Can I just keep playing?”

His wish wasn’t granted that night, but Mamiit, a Filipino-American, did keep on playing in his improbable journey, defeating veteran Mark Woodforde in the quarterfinals and his idol, Michael Chang, in the semifinals. Sunday, he lost to 14th-ranked Mark Philippoussis of Australia in the final.

As runner-up, Mamiit earned $27,000. His prize money in all of 1998--when he was 26-11 on the challenger tour and played only one ATP tour match--was $48,709.

There was little indication Mamiit was on the verge of this kind of breakthrough. He was ranked 120th and reached a career-high 85th when the new world rankings came out Monday. In January, he qualified for the Australian Open, won his first match and lost to rising German star Nicolas Kiefer in the second round. He also lost in the second round of a $50,000 challenger event at Amarillo, Texas, earlier this month.

Against Agassi, he started slowly, winning five points in losing the first set, 6-0.

“The crowd was trying to pull me through in the first set,” said Mamiit, who won the NCAA singles title at USC in 1996. “Andre was playing his game. There was one thing in my mind--I wanted to make it a longer match, keep the ball in play.”

By the end of the San Jose event, Mamiit had become a crowd favorite.

Mamiit spoke about how he has always wanted to be part of the CNN play of the day. But the Agassi incident was different.

“Play of the week,” Mamiit said, joking.

FLU SHOTS

Although Agassi was defaulted and Pete Sampras withdrew because of a strained tendon above his left ankle, San Jose was not a total disaster for U.S. players.

There was Mamiit, of course.

And Justin Gimelstob lost in a third-set tiebreaker to Philippoussis in the quarterfinals. This despite suffering from a severe case of flu against Jan-Michael Gambill in the first round. It was his best performance since reaching the semifinals in Los Angeles in the summer.

“Maybe it was lowered expectations,” said Gimelstob, who won in straight sets. “I had a 102-degree temperature on the court. About an hour before the match, I was strongly considering pulling out. I took some more medicine and wanted to go out there and give it a shot.

“I’d say I gutted it out.”