For most sports fans, Andre Agassi is tennis. The tennis
diehards are always up-to-date on all of the latest great, new and
up-and-coming players. But for most sports fans who only follow
tennis loosely, Agassi has represented the sport for well over a
decade.
He’s won eight Grand Slam tournaments. For most of his
career, he had an epic rivalry with the other great tennis player
of the last decade, Pete Sampras. He transformed himself from a
wild young phenom to a more mature, older, dominant player. He
became the United States’ favorite tennis player and was the
No. 1 reason American sports fans watched the sport of tennis.
Agassi has announced that he is retiring after the U.S. Open
(Aug. 28-Sept. 10). Between now and then, Agassi is scheduled to
play at some events ““ including this week’s Countrywide
Classic at UCLA ““ meaning that this year will be
Agassi’s last Countrywide Classic. This will be the last
chance for local tennis fans to see Agassi play in person.
His retirement will have a huge effect on the sport. People
flocked to last year’s local tournament (then called the
Mercedes-Benz Cup) mainly to see Agassi play and win the whole
thing. More may come to the Los Angeles Tennis Center this year to
see if he can do it again, in his last tour event in Los
Angeles.
“It does not get any greater than that. Having Andre come
back and choosing to play in L.A. for one of his last handful of
matches is impressive,” said Bob Kramer, tournament director
for the Countrywide Classic. “He’s the oldest guy in
the draw, but the youngest in spirit. He knows what it takes to get
his body ready.”
Last year’s success in Los Angeles propelled Agassi all
the way to the finals of the U.S. Open, losing the widely watched
final to Roger Federer, who was then ““ and now ““ the
No. 1-ranked player in the world. Agassi’s success also helps
other players get in the spotlight too, as the ever-dominant
Federer has become a much bigger name in the U.S. since beating
Agassi.
“Yeah, he’s obviously going to be a huge loss to the
sport even though he hasn’t played as many tournaments as
probably the sport would have liked over the last couple of
years,” said Lleyton Hewitt, who has previously won the U.S.
Open and Wimbledon. “He’s such a big name for the sport
and especially when a guy like Sampras has retired in the last
couple of years and this was his great rival as well. So there is
no doubt he will be missed and probably more so for his personality
as well as his name worldwide. It doesn’t really matter what
his ranking was. Everyone knew around the world who Andre Agassi
was.”
Agassi’s first-round match this week against Xavier
Malisse will be tough, but if he can get past that, it appears that
Agassi would have a relatively easy draw ““ a decent chance to
advance deep into the Countrywide Classic. And if Agassi does well
this week, or at any of his last tennis tournaments, it will
immediately boost the attendance and ratings of the event.
That should be expected. It’s easy to forget he
hasn’t won a Grand Slam event since the 2003 Australian Open,
but Agassi was dominant for so long. He’s won 60 singles
titles and 866 matches over 19 years. He’s one of only three
men to win each of the four Grand Slam events at least once, and
only five men in the long history of the sport have won more majors
than Agassi.
Agassi’s career is almost coming to an end. Tennis
won’t be the same without him. No sport can be when it loses
a player as dominant and well-liked as Agassi.
E-mail Quiñonez at gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.