Andre Agassi, one of my favourite tennis players of all-time (Ivan Lendl is still numero uno, Stefan Edberg, Martina Navratilova and Leander Paes round up my top 5) is going to end his tennis career at the US Open this year.
The only man to have won all 4 Grand Slam events and an Olympic gold medal (incidentally his wife, Steffi Graf, is the only person on the distaff side to have done so) Andre has fought hard against the power-serving brigade for almost two decades and done it (for the most part) with grace and class. I will miss watching him very much when he retires.
I hope he has a couple of deep runs left in his legs at the two remaining Grand Slams.
1 comment:
agree entirely on your choice of top 5 tennis players...all 5 are players that distinguished themselves by maximizing the return on their talent while continuing to display impeccable sportsmanship throughout....
...Agassi was a bit of an anomaly in that a well-marketed young American prodigy, he was the last to truly blossom amongst the quartet of US players of his generation (Chang, Courier and Sampras being the others) but in a career that was more Jimmy Connors than anything else, he has shown the longevity and sustained excellence like Connors...
He will remain part of pro tennis (unlike my fellow 40-er Edberg) as a commentator and an impressario, so we have not seen the last of him.
I half expect him to actually return to the pro game, perhaps only in doubles, a la Martina.
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