My Dinner with Andre … Agassi, That Is – By: Jack Neworth

Written by: Staff on 7th September 2012

My Dinner with Andre ... Agassi, That Is - By: Jack Neworth

epa03294947 Former tennis greats Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf in the Royal Box on Centre Court during the Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, in London, Britain, 04 July 2012. EPA/GERRY PENNY |

I have a confession to make; I wasn’t always a big tennis fan. On a tennis website this isn’t probably putting my best foot forward, but it’s true. I thought the game was a bit stuffy, what with all the rules, the white clothes and the whole “gentleman” aspect. Even the scoring bothered me. Winning one point was 15, winning two was 30 but winning three was 40? Huh? Why not 45?

But all my preconceived notions changed in 1987 when I saw a brash 17-year-old with long hair and jean shorts named Andre Agassi play at the L.A. Open at UCLA. Inasmuch as Andre’s being inducted into the prestigious Court of Champions on Sunday, I thought I’d share how my dinner with Andre on that balmy July night in 1987, totally changed how I viewed tennis.

First off, I didn’t technically have dinner with Andre. The truth is he played as I watched and ate dinner. (Hot dogs and a beer. How’s that for a balanced meal?) I was the guest of a couple of tennis purist friends who considered Agassi a Las Vegas showman, not someone who revered tennis.

Moments later Agassi was introduced over the loud speaker and the stadium went wild. It was if Mick Jagger had arrived. Andre whipped off his tennis jacket and began hitting a tennis ball with such a ferocity and style that I was mesmerized.

Only a month before, public tennis courts had been opened next to my apartment in Santa Monica. The constructions had taken nine months and my wife and I figured that since we had lived through the noise and dirt, maybe we should take up the game.

So that night at UCLA, Andre’s “rock n roll” style, had me questioning if maybe tennis wasn’t the stuffy country club sport I had thought. With Agassi’s “go for broke game”, I kept asking my friends dumb questions like, “If he misses that shot, doesn’t he lose the set?” They were unimpressed, but the sense of danger to Agassi’s game had me hooked.

Andre won that night and I had become a fan. Andre started that year ranked #91 in the world and ended it #25. By the end of 1988, Agassi would be ranked #3 in the world, having won six ATP titles.

As I look back now, twenty-five years later, it was unquestionably due to that July evening in 1987 that I started playing tennis at every chance I could. In fact, years later, when my wife would become my ex-wife, (though amicably) she would joke that she should have named “tennis” as a co-respondent.

I was far from alone in my admiration for Agassi. Upon his retirement in 2006, no less than the B.B.C. described him as “The biggest worldwide star in the sport’s history”.

What was it about Andre that made him so compelling to watch? There were as many factors as there were incarnations of his game. Andre evolved from the brash teenager with the “image is everything” Canon Rebel camera ad campaign, to a man in his 30’s dedicated to making the most of the time he had left in the game. (Through rigorous conditioning, Agassi won two of his Slams after the age of 30.)

Born and raised in Las Vegas, Andre was in fact the ultimate showman and extraordinarily talented. But it was the sense of danger to his game, combined with a sense of vulnerability, and the fact that he wore his heart on his sleeve, that drew millions of fans.

For me, there would be many “dinners with Andre” matches where I watched him play, often in between pizza and beer. (At least pizza had vegetables.) I would either celebrate or agonize, depending on how Andre prevailed. He and Sampras met 34 times, often nail-biters, with Pete winning 20 and Andre winning 14. (In the finals it was 9-7, including the 2001 U.S. Open Final which Sampras won, all 4 sets being tie-breakers.)

Two other U.S. Open Agassi matches that were among the most memorable to me, were both 5-set, come from behind, thrillers. In 2005 he won a quarterfinal over James Blake that went well into the night before a packed, raucous crowd. Then, in 2006, in his last Open victory, he beat Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus. Agassi, unranked, battled extreme back pains, while the eighth-seeded Baghdatis fought muscle cramps. As both clearly pushed their physical limits to the breaking point, Agassi prevailed with a boost from the ecstatic New York crowd.

When he retired from his twenty-year career, Agassi was one of only five male players to have won all the Grand Slam tournaments in a career, along with Don Budge, Roy Emerson, Rod Laver and Fred Perry. (Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have since joined this select group.)

In total, Andre won eight Grand Slams. He also won the Olympic gold medal in singles at Atlanta in 1996 and represented the USA in Davis Cup play many times, compiling a lifetime 30-5 record.

Agassi competed in twenty-one consecutive U.S. Opens. In fact, among his eight Slams were two Open titles. The first was in 1994 as Andre became the first unseeded player to ever win the Open. The second was in 1999, another 5-set come-from-behind thriller, over Todd Martin.

Last year Agassi was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. This year Agassi will be the 22^nd member of the prestigious U.S. Open Court of Champions, a recognition that includes a monument. The ceremony will take place at Arthur Ashe Stadium right before the Men’s Final. Despite the daytime hour, for me, it will be one last dinner with Andre.

(The Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a public charter school for at-risk youth in Las Vegas, has become so successful that Andre’s helping to build others across the country. An avid tennis fan, Jack Neworth is the co-author of “Men in White”, a screenplay about tennis legend Pancho Gonzalez and his rollercoaster forty-five-year friendship with fellow HOF player Pancho Segura. Jack can be reached at jnsmdp@aol.com.)

Topics: Andre Agassi, BBC tennis news, Davis Cup 2012, Don Budge, Fred Perry, International Tennis Hall Of Fame, Marcos Baghdatis, Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal, Rod Laver, Roger Federer, Roy Emerson, Sports, Tennis News, UCLA tennis news, US Open 2012