Agassi Seizes the Moment, Ousts Rafter

To the casual observer, all seemed well in Rod Laver Arena during the third set between Andre Agassi and Patrick Rafter. The big-match atmosphere created an electric buzz in the saunalike arena.

Olympic swim star Ian Thorpe smiled as Rafter pounded out ace after ace. Rafter’s model girlfriend, Lara, looked a little less nervous when he won the third-set tiebreaker. His coach, Tony Roche, inexplicably wearing a warmup jacket on a hot, muggy night, leaned forward and watched closely.

Rafter moved within one set of reaching his first Australian Open final in what has been thought to be his final appearance in the event. But the alert Agassi was hardly downtrodden. Though Rafter had 11 aces in the third set and finished with 22, Agassi noticed the sting was coming off Rafter’s first serve.

All was not well.

Intuition was followed by fact. Rafter started feeling cramps coming on in the tiebreaker and his legs were in a world of hurt by the fourth set. He called for medical assistance and the trainer massaged his leg. This was not to be a Willis Reed moment, Australian style.

Agassi, seeded sixth and the defending champion, lost only five games through the final two sets, winning Thursday’s semifinal, 7-5, 2-6, 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-3, in 3 hours 7 minutes, as the 12th-seeded Rafter practically finished playing on one leg. In the final, Agassi will play someone from France, either No. 15 Arnaud Clement or No. 16 Sebastien Grosjean, whose semifinal today had not ended before this edition of The Times went to press.

Outside Paris, at least, there was more hype surrounding the Agassi-Rafter match. It may not have come close to matching the Pete Sampras-Agassi epic semifinal of last year, but, for Australians, it may have been the last chance for one final salute to Rafter.

The semifinal was heading toward a classic finish before it ended not in tears but a pool of sweat.

There was no chalk outline marking Rafter’s demise, merely a shower of sweat on the court. His final singles match at the Australian Open, quite possibly, ended on a somber note. The two major goals eluding Rafter through a marvelous career are seeing his name on the Davis Cup and winning the Australian Open.

Sadly, cramps hit him near the finish line in both events in the last six weeks. The tension of the Davis Cup final against Spain in Barcelona last month caused cramping and forced him to default against Juan Carlos Ferrero.

“I wasn’t going to walk off possibly playing my last match of the Australian Open with an injury,” Rafter said. “I was going to play it out, whether I lost 6-0 or whatever I lost it. That was pretty well what was going through my mind.”

The size of Rafter’s heart has never been questioned. His heart and head were in it but that couldn’t stop the cramps.

“It’s tough when you want to chase it down, but your legs seize up,” he said. “My heart feels fine. It feels like it wants to run. I want to run, but my legs just won’t do it. If I try to push off, I just seize up and they cramp.”

Agassi was classy in victory. Sensitive to the circumstances, he trotted to the net when Rafter’s backhand floated long on match point. The celebration was minimal--a quick gesture to his box.

He had some kind words for Rafter at the net.

“It’s hard not to have a perspective on it,” Agassi said. “I’ve got to be honest, I would probably root for him too, if I was Aussie and down here. It’s certainly an understandable situation. You don’t take it personally.”

The end of the match should not detract from Agassi’s accomplishment. He committed only 12 unforced errors in five sets and this will be his fifth championship match appearance in the last eight Grand Slam events.

“As great as the tennis was last year, I really wasn’t aware of it coming off the court,” he said of the Sampras match. “To me, that’s always a sign that I’m playing my best tennis when I hear people saying what a great match it was, and I’m kind of feeling like I could have done things better. But that’s more right after the battle. It’s hard to have a clear perspective on it. I would imagine it was pretty high, pretty high standard.”

Agassi defeated Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia in the Australian Open final last year and has not won another tournament since then. In 1999, he won the French Open, reached the final at Wimbledon and won the U.S. Open.

One of his toughest losses last year was to Rafter in the Wimbledon semifinals, an exceptional five-set match. Agassi and Rafter have had such high quality matches of late, the 30-year-old Agassi proposed a reconsideration of the retirement issue for the 28-year-old Rafter.

“Maybe I can work out making it up the Australian people for taking him out of this event and talk him into sticking around an extra year to play down here again,” Agassi said. “With tennis like that, there’s no reason why he couldn’t or shouldn’t.”

Said Rafter: “I never really wanted to say this is a definite retirement. I’m going to take a long break [at the end of the year] and see what happens. If I want to come back, then I’ll come back. But I don’t want to come back from retirement. I’m ready to play this year.

“I want to do well. I’d love to be able to leave, saying, ‘It was a great year and I’m glad to leave the game.’ ”