Andre Agassi Andre Agassi.
Andre Kirk Agassi born April in Las Vegas Nevada is a former World No men's professional tennis player from the United States He has won eight Grand Slam singles titles and is one of only five players to have won all four Grand Slam events He is considered to be among the all time great tennis players.
Prodigy
Agassi's father Mike Agassi a former Olympic boxer was intent on having a child win all four Grand Slams He called Agassi's two older siblings guinea pigs in the development of his coaching techniques He honed Agassi's eye coordination when he was an infant by hanging tennis balls above his crib He gave Agassi paddles and balloons when he was still in a high chair When Agassi started playing tennis his ball collection filled garbage cans with balls per can and Agassi would hit balls every day When Andre was years old he was already practicing with pros such as Jimmy Connors and Roscoe Tanner.
Mike Agassi learned tennis by watching tapes of champions He modelled each of Andre's shots out of the champion that hit that shot better than anyone else He watched Boris Becker hit the ball on the rise and Ivan Lendl swing on the volley and he modelled Agassi's game after that Mike Agassi took a very systematic approach to the physics and psychology of tennis and still remains active in the sport More information can be found in Mike Agassi's book The Agassi Story.
Tennis career
Agassi turned professional in at the age of and won his first top level singles title in at Itaparica He won six further tournaments in and by December that year he had surpassed US million in career prize money after playing in just tournaments the quickest player in history to do so.
As a young up and coming player Agassi embraced a rebel image He grew his hair to rock star length sported an earring and wore colorful shirts that pushed tennis' still strict sartorial boundaries He boasted of a cheeseburger heavy diet and endorsed the Canon Rebel camera Image is everything was the ads's tag line and it became Agassi's as well.
Strong performances on the tour meant that Agassi was quickly tipped as a future Grand Slam champion But he began the with a series of near misses He reached his first Grand Slam final in at the French Open where he lost in four sets to the seasoned veteran player Andr s G mez Later that year he lost in the final of the US Open to another up and coming teenaged star Pete Sampras The rivalry between the two American players was to become the dominant rivalry in tennis over the rest the of the decade In Agassi reached his second consecutive French Open final where he faced his former Bollettieri Academy mate Jim Courier Courier emerged the victor in a dramatic rain interrupted five set final. px
Agassi chose not to play at Wimbledon from and publicly stated that he did not wish to play there because of the event's traditionalism particularly its predominantly white dress code which players at the event are required to conform to Many observers at the time speculated that Agassi's real motivation was that his strong baseline game would not be suited to Wimbledon's grass court surface He decided to play there in leading to weeks of speculation in the media about what he would wear he eventually emerged for the first round in a completely white outfit He reached the quarter finals on that occasion To the surprise of many Agassi's Grand Slam breakthrough came at Wimbledon in when he beat Goran Ivani evi in a tight five set final.
Following wrist surgery in Agassi came back strongly in and captured the US Open beating Michael Stich in the final He then captured his first Australian Open title in beating Sampras in a four set final He won a career high seven titles that year and he reached the World No ranking for the first time that April He held it for weeks on that occasion through to November.