Way to go September 6, 2006
I MADE IT a point to watch the US Open last Sunday night up to the wee hours of Monday morning. I had inkling it would be Andre Agassi's last game. It was.
Agassi, the "old man" of tennis at 36, ravaged by back pains and other afflictions, had said the US Open would be his last. What he didn't say -- and what the tennis world waited with bated breath to know -- was how he would go. As the last couple of weeks would show, in a blaze of glory. Well, pretty much so. As the match last Sunday would also show, tinged somewhat by T.S. Eliot's famous presentiment about worlds ending not with a bang but with a whimper.
His first two rounds in the Open -- against Andre Pavel and Marcos Baghdatis -- are now headed for the books as instant classics. Both were five setters, which had him rising to the top of his game, defying in the end time itself. But they would take their toll on him, too. He had cortisone injections in his back to relieve the pain after both matches and could barely move after the second one. I personally didn't think he wouldn't be around for the third round -- all the reports said he was in bad shape. His own father thought so. He was right.
In the end, all it took was an unexceptional opponent, one ranked past 100, Benjamin Becker, to knock him off. It was almost torture watching him play last Sunday night, except that like most everyone in the audience, I too was willing him past reason and the laws of the physical universe to do it just one more time. He hobbled about, moved woodenly like the weight of the world was on him, and endured the pain -- the physical one of a hurting back and the mental one of not being able to do what not too long ago he could. I hoped at one point he would quit the match, there would have been no shame in it. But he kept on. Before the game, he had told solicitous friends: "If I wanted to quit, I would have done that a long time ago. I didn't come here to quit."
That's the story of his life, and the one thing that drove me to follow his career. As talents go, his contemporary Pete Sampras was by far the more formidable player, winning more majors during his time than anybody else. And compared with current players, Roger Federer is by far the even more awesome, a veritable Achilles with virtually no Achilles heel.
What sets Agassi apart -- and which reminds us about the key element, or deepest secret, for success in any game, including the game of life -- is character.
I became a minor Agassi fan when he came on to the game as a youth, long hair, denim shorts and a cockiness that proclaimed the dawning of rock-and-roll in tennis. I shared his frustration during his early years when the promise of a rock-and-roll tennis demigod seemed to turn sour. And I reveled with him when he persevered and went on to win one major after another, except the French -- the one thing that eluded Sampras and the one thing that eludes Federer now.
But none of that really tested his mettle. What did was the tailspin his career went into in the latter half of the 1990s. For some inexplicable reason, his game dove in 1997. Some of the matches he played at that time completely justified how he would describe the sensation later: "It was an embarrassment just being on the court." I saw some of those games. He turned from Beatles to beat-less overnight, being routinely humbled by humble players, or those in the lower rungs of the ladder panting from the exertion of the climb. He himself would end up there, tumbling from one of the top five players in the world to a truly humble and humbled 141st. It didn't help that he started playing in the minor leagues, which made him look even more pathetic. For all practical purposes, he was washed up.
But slowly, miraculously, by dint of sheer will, he pulled himself back up. I've seen magnificent comebacks. Frank Sinatra did it in the 1970s; John Travolta did it in the 1990s. But talents in singing and acting are not easily ravaged by time, merely by public taste. Talents in sports are. Sports are one field that time rules tyrannically. Agassi came back, and came back more magnificently, or dramatically, than others.
He began the climb in 1998 and, though he didn't win any major that year, served notice he was back on track. He came roaring back the next year. By summer, he fought his way through the French Open and went on to the finals. The only thing that lay between him and redemption was Andrei Medvedev, a young man who was in turn seeking respect. At the outset, the quest for respect seemed superior to the quest for redemption. Medvedevwon the first two sets handily.
Then -- as Agassi had done with his life over the past couple of years -- he turned things around. He battled Medvedev furiously over the next two rounds and tied the match. Leading 5-4 in the deciding set and with match point, he whacked the ball to the other side of the court to see the return sail past him. Game, set, match. Adversity, struggle, triumph. Rise, fall, rise again. It was more than that, he had finally won the one major that had eluded him. It was that he had finally won the greatest battle of his life-the one he had fought with himself. He wept uncontrollably as he kissed the trophy that was handed to him that day.
It was that same scene last Sunday night, though one filled with more poignancy. He couldn't speak for a while, he choked on his words as he attempted to say something while the world stood (literally) on its feet, tears streaming down the faces of many of his fans as well. Words could not convey the depth of his thankfulness for them and the depth of his sadness at leaving them. Well, words weren't really needed. Everything that needed to be said had already been said.
Way to go, Andre. Way to go, world.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=19198
Agassi, the "old man" of tennis at 36, ravaged by back pains and other afflictions, had said the US Open would be his last. What he didn't say -- and what the tennis world waited with bated breath to know -- was how he would go. As the last couple of weeks would show, in a blaze of glory. Well, pretty much so. As the match last Sunday would also show, tinged somewhat by T.S. Eliot's famous presentiment about worlds ending not with a bang but with a whimper.
His first two rounds in the Open -- against Andre Pavel and Marcos Baghdatis -- are now headed for the books as instant classics. Both were five setters, which had him rising to the top of his game, defying in the end time itself. But they would take their toll on him, too. He had cortisone injections in his back to relieve the pain after both matches and could barely move after the second one. I personally didn't think he wouldn't be around for the third round -- all the reports said he was in bad shape. His own father thought so. He was right.
In the end, all it took was an unexceptional opponent, one ranked past 100, Benjamin Becker, to knock him off. It was almost torture watching him play last Sunday night, except that like most everyone in the audience, I too was willing him past reason and the laws of the physical universe to do it just one more time. He hobbled about, moved woodenly like the weight of the world was on him, and endured the pain -- the physical one of a hurting back and the mental one of not being able to do what not too long ago he could. I hoped at one point he would quit the match, there would have been no shame in it. But he kept on. Before the game, he had told solicitous friends: "If I wanted to quit, I would have done that a long time ago. I didn't come here to quit."
That's the story of his life, and the one thing that drove me to follow his career. As talents go, his contemporary Pete Sampras was by far the more formidable player, winning more majors during his time than anybody else. And compared with current players, Roger Federer is by far the even more awesome, a veritable Achilles with virtually no Achilles heel.
What sets Agassi apart -- and which reminds us about the key element, or deepest secret, for success in any game, including the game of life -- is character.
I became a minor Agassi fan when he came on to the game as a youth, long hair, denim shorts and a cockiness that proclaimed the dawning of rock-and-roll in tennis. I shared his frustration during his early years when the promise of a rock-and-roll tennis demigod seemed to turn sour. And I reveled with him when he persevered and went on to win one major after another, except the French -- the one thing that eluded Sampras and the one thing that eludes Federer now.
But none of that really tested his mettle. What did was the tailspin his career went into in the latter half of the 1990s. For some inexplicable reason, his game dove in 1997. Some of the matches he played at that time completely justified how he would describe the sensation later: "It was an embarrassment just being on the court." I saw some of those games. He turned from Beatles to beat-less overnight, being routinely humbled by humble players, or those in the lower rungs of the ladder panting from the exertion of the climb. He himself would end up there, tumbling from one of the top five players in the world to a truly humble and humbled 141st. It didn't help that he started playing in the minor leagues, which made him look even more pathetic. For all practical purposes, he was washed up.
But slowly, miraculously, by dint of sheer will, he pulled himself back up. I've seen magnificent comebacks. Frank Sinatra did it in the 1970s; John Travolta did it in the 1990s. But talents in singing and acting are not easily ravaged by time, merely by public taste. Talents in sports are. Sports are one field that time rules tyrannically. Agassi came back, and came back more magnificently, or dramatically, than others.
He began the climb in 1998 and, though he didn't win any major that year, served notice he was back on track. He came roaring back the next year. By summer, he fought his way through the French Open and went on to the finals. The only thing that lay between him and redemption was Andrei Medvedev, a young man who was in turn seeking respect. At the outset, the quest for respect seemed superior to the quest for redemption. Medvedevwon the first two sets handily.
Then -- as Agassi had done with his life over the past couple of years -- he turned things around. He battled Medvedev furiously over the next two rounds and tied the match. Leading 5-4 in the deciding set and with match point, he whacked the ball to the other side of the court to see the return sail past him. Game, set, match. Adversity, struggle, triumph. Rise, fall, rise again. It was more than that, he had finally won the one major that had eluded him. It was that he had finally won the greatest battle of his life-the one he had fought with himself. He wept uncontrollably as he kissed the trophy that was handed to him that day.
It was that same scene last Sunday night, though one filled with more poignancy. He couldn't speak for a while, he choked on his words as he attempted to say something while the world stood (literally) on its feet, tears streaming down the faces of many of his fans as well. Words could not convey the depth of his thankfulness for them and the depth of his sadness at leaving them. Well, words weren't really needed. Everything that needed to be said had already been said.
Way to go, Andre. Way to go, world.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=19198
posted by dqfan06 @ 11:26 AM
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