Agassi Restores Order

There was a feel-good ending here Sunday to a tennis tournament that had a queasy week.

About 24 hours after a stadium full of tennis fans--traditionally not your beer-can-throwing, curse-and-spit gathering--booed a 19-year-old American female tennis player and rooted wildly for her Belgian opponent, the Indian Wells Garden center court returned to civility. More so, it became a lovefest.

The two legendary men’s stars had finished their final in front of a crowd of 13,477, and now it was time for the awards and the speeches.

These ceremonies are often trite, seldom memorable. But this time, with the backdrop of what had gone on previously, what took place after the big match was big.

Pete Sampras was handed the microphone first and, trophy in hand and check for $211,000 in his pocket, he spoke about his opponent.

“I’d like to congratulate Andre on the fine year he is having,” Sampras said. “He is the best in the business against me.”

Sampras smiled, waved to the crowd, shook hands with the various officials and dignitaries standing around looking official and dignified, thanked members of his family for coming to watch and promised that he would be back again.

And he was the loser!

The winner of the 2001 Tennis Masters Series at Indian Wells, Andre Agassi, was up next. He had another trophy for his gallery, a check for $400,000 in his pocket and a smile on his face as big as his service return when he addressed the crowd.

“I want to say to Pete that it has been a joy and a privilege just to compete with you,” Agassi said. “You are to be commended for the great things you have done for the game of tennis.”

When he was done speaking, he turned to Sampras, standing behind him alongside the officials and dignitaries, and they bumped fists. They were two guys who had just completed their 30th professional tennis match against each other and now, in the approaching twilight of their careers, were comfortable responding with perspective and maturity to the moment. Somebody had won, somebody had lost, nobody had died.

The crowd loved it, sending one wave after another of applause toward the court before shuffling off to the exits and out to the parking lots to their waiting Mercedes and BMWs.

Life had returned to normal in the Coachella Valley. Ah, what a difference a day makes.

Saturday, Serena Williams had walked onto center court to play Kim Clijsters of Belgium in the women’s final and was hit by a barrage of boos unheard of at this event and almost unprecedented--at least in intensity and duration--in the sport of tennis.

The only event in recent memory even approaching this sort of raucous behavior was the day in 1996 at the Olympics in Atlanta, when promoters decided to move a doubles match involving Agassi to another court. Fans who had purchased tickets to see Agassi were incensed and started to push and shove toward the stadium gate and chant. Bud Collins, veteran tennis writer and broadcaster, stood watching and eventually proclaimed, in mock horror, “My god, they’re rioting at tennis!”

The only casualties from that Olympic moment were a few torn $300 Fila warmup suits and a lost pair of designer sunglasses.

Saturday’s tennis-fan uprising was much more expressive and serious. It was tennis’ version of “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.” The people who paid for the tickets and support the TV sponsors--in other words, the lifeblood of the sport--had seen enough of the perceived foolishness of the Williams family. They had finally come to the conclusion that there was more than meets the eye in the default of Venus to sister Serena just minutes before their semifinal match was to begin on a jampacked center court Thursday night.

So they voiced their opinion. Literally. Loudly. And often. At times, it felt more like Liverpool-Manchester United than Williams-Clijsters.

Significantly, there is really only one other way for them to be heard: Stop coming. Stop buying tickets. Stop watching on TV. Worst of all for the sport of tennis, stop caring.

That’s why Sunday’s show on center court was important.

The classic match turned out not to be. The tennis was worth the ticket price, but not worth more than a snippet on SportsCenter.

The truth is quite simple: Agassi is in better shape than Sampras and, while his game is not as pretty and his athleticism not as incredible as Sampras’, it was a hot day and losing the first-set tiebreaker took a lot of the will out of Sampras.

“I kind of wilted in the third set,” Sampras said.

It was one of those “size of the fight in the dog” kinds of matches, and Agassi is nothing if not a pit bull in big matches.

But in the frame of reference of what had occurred here this week, what happened after the Sampras-Agassi match probably was more significant in the big picture of tennis than what happened during it. A sour postmatch could have been the last straw for lots of these fans. A surly show might have driven thousands away, maybe forever. Sulking and poor losers or smugness and cocky winners could have sealed the deal for a lot of people who are now watching this sport more closely.

Tennis now knows it must somehow deal with the Venus-Serena show. Richard and his daughters have put the sport that has paid them so handsomely under a microscope.

So, it was fortunate for tennis that the featured attraction was left to a pair of adults, that Sampras and Agassi had the last word.

On this day in the desert, they worked like Alka-Seltzer.