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The Master Class that is Agassi
Andre Agassi had often hogged the tennis headlines over the years. From his earlier days due to his often glitzy tennis performances, long flowing locks and and flashy luminous Nike outfits. He was hailed as a tennis prodigy at the tender age of 4, but never really made much of an impact early in his career. It was only much later on, that he started making waves in the tennis world. No longer because of his flamboyant flashy outfits nor his stylish play, but ironically due to his age!This guy was beating toped ranked players who were 10 to 15 younger than him! At the ripe old age of 35, he is already considered the "Grand Daddy of Tennis". Mind you, Agassi does not seem or play like a 35 year old! on the contrary, he plays like a well oiled machine, with fine tuned precision and meticulous consistency that have put many younger players to shame. Agassi's achievement symbolizes, that with absolute commitment, a well planned strategy and most importantly with the heart and belief - "miracles" do happen!
Many have put his new found success to his new fitness regime which clearly shows, but at 35, it is a super human feat to play and sustain his performance at this level, pace and consistency against an aging body with much fresher and younger opponents. Just by staying on and keeping up with the players in the current ATP tour, is a phenomenal achievement. Agassi has however been consistently matching his opponents and beating most of them. He has indeed reversed the wheels of time by his super human efforts to make it to the 2005 US Open finals.
I agree that fitness plays a huge part, but during many of his post match interviews, I noticed that there is this difference with Andre missing in his earlier years. There seems to be this "fire" and desire buring inside of him to see if he still can "pull it off". There is also this belief that he can still do this! When he played in the Australian Open earlier this year, he mentioned that all the training and hard work was for all "this" (playing day in day out against the best in the world). It is this drive which sustains Agassi, and keeps him doing what he does best - winning!
The other major factor would be Steffi Graf and both his kids always at courtside watching him
play. Steffi clearly understand the rigors of playing on the professional tour and all her encouragement and support by bringing up the kids and going to court side to watch him play his matches clearly inspires him to greater heights of achievement.He is no longer distracted with his family commitments, but can now focus on his main immediate goal of tennis. I also believe all his charity work involvement like establishing The Andre Agassi Foundation has made it more fulfilling for him.
I grew up watching and idolizing Andre, and I guess that most teenagers who were into tennis and those who were not all did! From the Nike Challenge Court series outfits to his shoes. To me, Agassi then, was Nike and not the other way round! The whole Nike tennis range and apparel was fashioned and revolved around Andre Agassi. Everything from his shoes, clothing, bandana was catered to him. Same went for his racquets. It all started with the Donnay Pro One series and later with the Head Radical Series. All of them had the flashy look that literally branded and spelled "AGASSI" in BOLD. He was what we Singaporeans deemed a Stylo Milo individual in Singaporean terms. Which translated to plain English, meant he was really cool...
He is, and will always be remembered as a "tennis icon" and symbol of tennis professionalism over the years. Whether or not he wins in today's US Open 2005 finals against the world's number one Roger Federer, or if this will be his last final appearance in the US Open is besides the point. He has proven to the world and most importantly to himself that he can still play and compete against the best in the world at his age. He has already made history by going this far. The Regentville Tennis Blog would like to wish Andre Agassi the best of luck in his finals to be played later today. Thank you Andre for giving us so many wonderful years of tennis!
