Agassi’s Victory Is Quite a Stretch

No one quite knew how to treat the beginning of the end for Andre Agassi at the U.S. Open.

This new, rather uncomfortable experience had New Yorkers almost unsettled at first. Agassi’s camp looked concerned, and his wife, Steffi Graf, seemed as though she was waiting to exhale.

Suddenly, and inexplicably, his first-round match against Andrei Pavel turned in the third set and Agassi led the way out of the darkness, and pulled off one of the more remarkable comebacks of his exalted career, defeating Pavel, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (8), 7-6 (6), 6-2, in 3 hours 31 minutes, hitting an unreturnable serve on match point.

Considering the circumstances -- this is the 36-year-old Agassi’s final tournament -- the comeback has to be ranked fairly high on the list in his two decades on the tour. He trailed 0-4 in the third set, urged his coach Darren Cahill to get him a racket with increased string tension and promptly won five straight games.

The high-wire act frayed a few nerves among the sellout crowd of 23,000-plus at Arthur Ashe Stadium, and TV commentator John McEnroe teased Agassi about giving everyone a heart attack.

“I tell you what, I think I would have it before anyone else would,” Agassi said in his on-court interview. “I want to be here real bad for the whole two weeks. Six more [matches].

“You guys have pulled me through so much in my life. I tell you, the loudest noise in the world is 23,000 quiet New Yorkers. ... I’m very proud of this day and I’m glad it gets to happen again.”

That would be in the second round against 2006 Australian Open finalist and Wimbledon semifinalist Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus. But that’s another day.

The escape artist himself had written off the third set, and had he lost that, well, that mountain was pretty self-explanatory.

“Plenty of doubt. Plenty of doubt. It was pretty bleak there in the middle of the third set,” Agassi said.

But Agassi had been making Pavel work hard.

And Pavel felt discomfort on several fronts. He started suffering from stomach cramps.

“It just came like this,” Pavel said, snapping his fingers. “Then I had to go. I went to the bathroom like two times in about, I don’t know, 10 minutes. I start feeling it like before. I thought like, you know, maybe I had the nerves or maybe a lot of emotion. I had to run fast.”

If Agassi’s aching back can hold up -- the burning question, of course -- Pavel gave him a chance of going deep into the tournament, especially with the crowd support, citing the example of Pete Sampras in 2002.

“He’s the man right now, so I wish him well,” Pavel said.

Agassi had no idea how problematic balancing his emotions could get in his final Open, especially when he first walked on the court.

“Yeah, it was. I tell you, it’s a real, you know, interesting conflict at work,” he said. “I didn’t anticipate it to be this difficult emotionally. You want to take it in because you know how special it is.”

The Agassi Open obscured everything else on the court, and the wait was well worth the Agassi-Pavel match, which followed a nearly 90-minute ceremony honoring the naming of the National Tennis Center for legend Billie Jean King.

From one legend to another. Monday seemed all about Agassi. Nearly everyone connected with him has been giving interviews, and that included his father, Mike Agassi, who rarely comes to tournaments.

“That’s part of life, you’re born some day, you retire some day and you die some day,” Mike Agassi said. “That’s life. It’s always good to retire on a high note.”

Had the son asked the father for any advice?

“Since he makes more money than I do, he never asks me anything,” Mike said, smiling.