The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : The rebel who ended up ruling

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Sunday, Aug 27, 2006

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The rebel who ended up ruling

Venus pulls out

NEW YORK: From rebel to regal, Andre Agassi has seen it all in a two-decade long career that will finally end at the U.S. Open.

He took tennis by storm when he first blasted on to the scene out of Las Vegas in 1986 — a motley mix of rock-star hair, facial stubble, cut-off jeans and in-your-face attitude.

Image was everything was the Agassi slogan, but little did anyone know how much that image would metamorphise over the next 20 years.

Groomed for success

Groomed for success by his father Mike, who represented Iran at boxing in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics before emigrating to the United States, Agassi enjoyed immediate success winning his first ATP tournament as a wild card in Mexico in 1987.

Along with great rival Pete Sampras, he soon supplanted the ageing Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe as the figureheads of a golden generation of U.S. Tennis stars.

Olympic gold

Grand Slam success followed at Wimbledon in 1992, at the U.S. Open two years later and in Australia the following year. He was ranked world No. 1 for 30 weeks from April 1995, the year he shaved his balding head and took Olympic gold at Atlanta in 1996.

Meanwhile Venus Williams has announced on Friday that she was withdrawing from the U.S. Open owing to injury to her left wrist which sidelined her since Wimbledon.

Her agent, Carlos Fleming, said Williams plans to participate in the U.S. Open's opening-night ceremony on Monday, when the complex used for the tournament will be renamed to honour Billie Jean King. — Agencies

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