The greatest tennis players of all time

Continuing with our series on the greatest tennis players of all time, here’s No. 17 on our list.

The year is 1999. The man is down 2 sets to love. And he’s been totally outplayed in both of them, losing 1-6, 2-6. He’s staring down the barrel in the third set, serving at break point. To top it all off, he is facing a 6’4” giant, in the final of the French Open. The things that must be going on inside his head – embarrassment, humiliation, respectability in defeat perhaps.

Fast-forward a couple of hours. There stands Andre Agassi, serving at match point in the fifth set against Andriy Medvedev. A point later, history is made, as Agassi becomes only the fifth male tennis player and second in the Open Era to lift all four Slams. And the biggest factor that helped him win (other than the rain delay) might well have been the immense reserves of mental toughness under that thinning hair.

The Agassi story began way back in the late 80’s, when the teenager strode out in his famous pigeon-toed style, and made a string of semi-final and final appearances. Being supremely talented, and also having been put to the sword by his dad from a very young age, a good technique as well as supreme mental toughness had been injected into his blood. But it wasn’t until 1992 that he would win a Slam. The 1992 Wimbledon, where Agassi beat Goran Ivanisevic (another legend in his own right), would come to be among the first few times a baseliner had triumphed at the Championships.

His professional ride was a topsy-turvy one to say the least. Winning the ’94 US Open made him the first unseeded player to conquer Flushing Meadows. 1995 proved to be a consistent year, with the Aussie Open title and the #1 ranking in his bag by the end of the season. After another lull, he won at Paris, and then resumed his romance with Melbourne, winning it four times in all. At the end of it all, he stood at eight Slams, and became the first player ever to complete a Career Golden Slam (winner of all four Majors and an Olympic gold medal). Rafael Nadal is the only other player to match this feat.

When it came to tennis ability, Agassi’s was perhaps born as much out of long practice hours as out of sheer skill or talent. If there was one thing Agassi was head and shoulders above the rest at, it was his ability to return serve. Agassi was one of the first players to show to the world that the return of serve can be as big a weapon as the first serve. With a good return of serve you can stun your opponent and control the point. But the return, unlike the serve, is generally not practiced enough, and the hours Agassi put in to master the basic rule of hitting the return deep against baseliners and short against serve-and-volleyers went a long way towards him being recognised worldwide as the best returner in the business.

Although his return would have helped immensely when facing the likes of Ivanisevic or a Phillippoussis, Agassi also put the pace he could generate with that crisp forehand and two-handed backhand to good use. Agassi was also known to be extremely mentally tough, and with coach Brad Gilbert on his side no situation was ever irretrievable for him until the last shot had been played.

The one statistic of his career Agassi might want to change could well be his rivalry against Pete Sampras. It was always a Sampras-Agassi match, not vice versa. Although Andre had his set of staunch supporters, Pete was the average tennis fans’ favourite; Agassi was always considered an obstacle along Pete’s path towards perfection. Almost like Federer v Nadal, one might say. And just like Federer-Nadal, the Sampras-Agassi rivalry too conjured up some amazing matches between a man whose prime strength was his pin-point serve against another who was a lethal returner. Their epic match in the 2001 US Open quarters saw them cancel each other’s strengths out, with not a single break of serve for either player during the entire match. Sampras won that game in 4 sets, and also led Agassi in the overall rivalry 20-14.

No description of Agassi can be complete without a mention of his autobiography, ‘Open’. If you’ve read it, that’s great. If you haven’t, please please get a copy right away. Open is, for me, the most honest description ever of a man’s life. Agassi writes about a multitude of things – some extremely personal, some even humiliating, ranging from his glory days as a mullet-sporting teenager to his dangerous dance with crystal meth, which, had it been exposed during his playing days, would have ended his career.

The most intriguing fact about the book is Agassi’s natural aversion to tennis (something he shared with wife Steffi Graf). Yes, tennis got him money, fame and an everlasting legacy, but on more occasions than one, he’d gladly have thrown his racquet away in exchange for a normal life. Although he was smiling happily and posing in front of the cameras, what went on inside his head was a whole other story. Agassi’s book is actually an accurate description of how most people in general feel about their professions. It’s something that we can all connect to; maybe we’re all programmed to hate what we do for a living? That might be a discussion too philosophical for a tennis-following populace, but it’s something that Agassi compels you to believe through his autobiography.

Besides being a great champion, Agassi was also a thorough entertainer. Whether it was the famous kiss-and-bow celebration at the end of a match, the rebellious denim shorts he wore on court in his younger days, or his rollercoaster affairs with the likes of Barbra Streisand and Brooke Shields, Agassi was the quintessential showman. But he scored mightily over the other entertainers in the sport by backing up his shenanigans with a brilliant all-round game, giving players of all kinds more than a run for their money on the court. And yes, he did it for 20 long years. From where I’m looking, a strong case can be made for Agassi being the ultimate combination of style and substance.

And now for a video reminder of Agassi’s greatness. Here’s a clip that showcases his two biggest strengths – his return of serve and his passing shots.