Agassi's Last Wimbledon Hurrah?

Monday, 19 June, 2006

Going out with a bang rather than a whimper is the ambition cherished by every top athlete but achieved by few. The last loud explosion involving Andre Agassi occurred last September at the US Open, where he ran Roger Federer to four sets in the final. Since then the 36-year-old has been battling recurring back problems.
Agassi's arrival on the scene for a 14th tilt at The Championships, following a break of three and a half months from tournament play and two years away from Wimbledon, smacks very much of one last hurrah at the place where he won his first Grand Slam back in 1992.
Understandably, because of health concerns, Agassi is coy about whether this will be his farewell to the place where he made his debut back in 1987. "I am motivated enough and have enough respect for the tournament to get myself here in the best shape possible," he said on his arrival in London.
"Of course, with my back condition it can feel great and then suddenly change - out on the court, in the middle of the night, even taking the kids to the grocery store. I have looked at every tournament in the last four years knowing it might be my last."
A winner of 60 titles and one of only five men to have captured all four Grand Slams during his 20-year career (Don Budge, Rod Laver, Fred Perry and Roy Emerson are the others), Agassi deliberately missed the clay court segment of the season in order to avoid the possibility of suffering further damage to his back, so he is not exactly shouting his prospects from the rooftops.
"I have been away from tennis for a number of months and I am coming back on a surface that is not easy," he said. "You have a certain idea of your conditioning but you can't measure how you react to the ball and how you respond to the other demands until you put it to the test. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle and for me movement is everything."
That movement was not the best in his only pre-Wimbledon tournament match, a first round loss to Tim Henman in the Stella Artois event at Queen's Club. "It wasn't as good as I had hoped but I suppose it could have been worse," he conceded. "Over the past year or so it's been a week-to-week proposition for me."
Having undergone cortisone injections to enable him to get on court in the past, Agassi has opted to avoid the needle this time. "I just felt that with a little bit of rest and preparation, if that doesn't get the job done I'm probably hoping for too much at this stage. But the back has been feeling good, so no complaints there."
It is unlikely that Agassi would be able to repeat his successes of the 2005 US Open, when he survived three consecutive five-set marathons en route to the final, where he received the tribute from his conqueror, Federer, that he is "an absolute living legend."
While there is no disputing that comment, Agassi is also a realist about the task awaiting him. "The balls have definitely gotten heavier, guys have gotten bigger and faster, so there's a lot more rallies now.
"It's deceptively hard work, too, physically on the grass because the ball bounces lower than on a normal court, so footing is more unsure. Your every step is taking a lot out of you if you're running hard.
"So I don't regard myself as a contender at the moment. Though it's hard for me to be overly confident I certainly don't want to be pessimistic, either. This is the first Grand Slam I ever won, so it's a special place for me."
The man who also lost the 1999 final to Pete Sampras and was a three time Wimbledon semi-finalist intends to play the sort of tennis which his admirers will remember and vows that those bidding to take his place in the pantheon of the greats "will have to play the game of their lives to beat me." What Andre might call going out with a bang.

Written by Ronald Atkin