EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Andre
Agassi lunges for a shot by Greg Rusedski in Thursday
night’s match.
By Jeff Agase
Daily Bruin Reporter
It was Andre versus the giant and some enormously controversial
calls.
Thursday night at the Los Angeles Tennis Center, a packed house
watched No. 3 seeded and 5 ft. 11 Andre Agassi defeat 6 ft. 4 Greg
Rusedski, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, in the second round of the Mercedes-Benz
Cup.
The match began with Rusedski fuming over the chair
umpire’s overruling of an “in” call on one of
Rusedski’s blazing serves. A linesman had made the close call
earlier in the match.
“I got a lot of real tough calls in the first set,”
Rusedski said. “I thought that the overrules were really bad.
If it is a clear mistake, then you overrule, if it’s not a
clear mistake you don’t overrule.”
Part of Rusedski’s frustration stemmed from the third game
of the match, where he saw a triple break point opportunity
dissolve with an overrule. After forcing deuce, Agassi took the
game.
Another overrule at 3-2 with Rusedski serving gave Agassi his
third breakpoint of the game, on which he capitalized to go up 4-2.
Agassi held his remaining service games to win the first set
6-3.
But Rusedski held fast to his blistering serve and volley game,
acing Agassi to win the first game of the second set. He followed
it up with a break of Agassi’s serve at love to go up 2-0 and
seemingly put himself into solid position.
Rusedski’s game forced the baseliner Agassi to retune his
usual style.
“Greg lets you get away with shots that aren’t that
good,” Agassi said.”You’re forced to play your
game differently. He kind of tempts you into playing aggressive
tennis.”
And Agassi did just that. Facing Rusedski’s vaunted serve
and already down a break, Agassi ate up Rusedski’s
high-kicking second serve en route to a break of his own.
Suddenly, Rusedski abandoned his pattern of slicing low
backhands to Agassi. Liberally applying topspin to backhands,
Rusedski outlasted Agassion a long rally at set point to win the
second set at 6-4.
The crowd, expecting a straight set Agassi win, rose to its feet
in anticipation of an intense third and deciding set.
While Rusedski showed an uncommon ability to hang with Agassi
from the baseline, Agassi maintained a level of control by moving
his opponent back and forth across the court. Fatigue began to set
in, and Agassi broke Rusedski at 4-4. He served the match out by
the count of 6-4.
“When you play for two hours and you get that one chance
against your opponent and seize it, it’s a great
feeling,” Agassi said. “I was able to get to his legs
and dictate the match on my own terms.”
After the match, Rusedski was decidedly less upset about the
line calls and preferred to focus on a great hardcourt warm-up for
the upcoming U.S. Open.
“The crowd got what they wanted,” he said.
“They got a great match and they got Andre through to the
next round.”
Agassi will next face fellow American and No. 5 seed Jan-Michael
Gambill this afternoon in the quarterfinals.