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Style, substance, and character

When, in 1986, Andre Agassi burst on the tennis scene with pigeon-toed gait, peroxide blond hair, and clothes that glowed in the dark, hardened tennis writers were unanimous that this image-obsessed teenage rebel of Armenian-Iranian, Assyrian, and western European origins, the son of an Olympic boxer for Iran, was all style and no substance. He was expected to burn out in no time. As it turned out, when the final flicker came on Sunday, September 3, 2006, it was in front of an adoring audience of 23,000 in New York — and tens of millions round the world watching the U.S. Open on television. In the two decades following his debut, Agassi, a man of many makeovers, journeyed from narcissistic punk rocker to virtuoso conductor. Few modern sportspersons have reshaped themselves and their careers as elegantly and as passionately as did this highly intelligent man. He ended his playing days as an immensely popular ambassador of the sport, with a fan base extending from Las Vegas to Lahore and from New York to Tokyo. Last week, as the ageing troubadour enacted one minor epic after another to postpone retirement, the tournament became the Andre Agassi Open.

Agassi has left the game as an all-time great. One of only five men to have won all the four Grand Slam titles — Fred Perry, Don Budge, Roy Emerson, and Rod Laver are the others — the eight-time Slam champion also won the Olympic gold medal at Atlanta in 1996. An aggressive baseliner with quick hands, the finest returner of serve of his generation, Agassi was a connoisseur's delight with his refined, balletic movements on court. He had the rare ability to adapt to every kind of playing surface, a versatility that saw him win major titles on grass, clay, and hard courts. In a sport where 30 is considered over the hill, Agassi won five of his eight Grand Slam titles after turning 29, recapturing the No.1 ranking a day before his 33rd birthday and remaining competitive until the last. Playing young men just over half his age, the charismatic American displayed the heart of a gladiator and the mental sharpness of a grandmaster. Great sporting achievement and career longevity often depend on single-minded immersion; for sport tends to exaggerate the passage of time. This champion trained like an army commando even as his international career was approaching its end. Few tennis players could think as fast on running feet and Agassi proved this by holding his own against more gifted rivals who possessed bigger weapons, men like Pete Sampras. Friends off the court and fierce foes on it, Agassi and Sampras played tennis of ineffable majesty and searing intensity in many of their 34 meetings. Now at last, it is time for Agassi, who married Steffi Graf in 2001 and is the father of two children, to trade his tennis racquets for golf clubs and take on his friend on the fairways and greens.

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