Andre Agassi on his 50th birthday: prodigy, pop star, role model
Hardly anyone underwent such a change in the course of his career as Andre Agassi . A man who hated tennis first and mixed it up with neon colors and denim shorts - and ended up becoming a model professional.
by Jörg Allmeroth
last edit:
Apr 29, 2020, 08:07 pm
It was spring two years ago that Andre Agassi looked back on his life at home in Las Vegas. And in a small discussion round he looked at the “two greatest victories” that he had won, victories off the stage that made him a world star, one of the best-known, sometimes controversial athletes of his time. "I found a life next to tennis. I made a dream come true, "to be able to help other people who are not doing so well," said Agassi, referring to his foundation activities, the construction of schools and kindergartens in his hometown Las Vegas and throughout America with tens of millions of dollars.
And then, victory number two, about which he added that victory might not be the right word. Agassi is no stranger to pathos, and so he explained that “Fate fulfillment” might be more appropriate for his “wonderful marriage” with Steffi Graf, “the woman who fits me as perfectly as you can fit together perfectly.” Agassi smiled his typical Buddha smile and said, "You see a happy person in front of you."
The new Agassi life is a Graf life
Agassi turns 50 on Wednesday. A man with whom you didn't know where you were with him for a long time. And his fascination arose precisely from this fact, by the way, very much like his long-time arch enemy Boris Becker. Even now, after half a century of life, the astonishment has not yet vanished, but now because Agassi leads a retired, rather quiet life that seemed completely unthinkable in his active career. Agassi's life has become more of a count life, a life that corresponds to his wife - without many headlines, without page 1 presence, without expressing opinions on one or the other topic. Instead, Agassi continues to act as a benefactor who cares for disadvantaged children and teenagers - and is therefore in greater demand than ever in times like the corona pandemic.
In recent years, Agassi has sporadically reappeared in the tennis circus, but his commitment has never been so sustainable. The American soon ended his engagement with world number one Novak Djokovic , who Agassi could not and could not meet the demands the highly ambitious Serb made of a top advisor. The liaison with the very talented Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov did not last long, Agassi later confessed that less he was behind the professional activities than his wife: “Steffi almost pushed me a bit to accept that. Because maybe I could get bored. ”One thing, in fact, was also evident when Agassi's reappearance in the traveling circus: he had grown plump, with a strong stomach, maybe due to the painkillers he had to take against his violent, chronic back pain.
Agassi: Last match against B. Becker
In 2006 he dragged himself to his last hurray with bad pain at the US Open in New York. It was an almost bizarre performance, before one of his games you could see Agassi lying on the ground in a concrete hallway in front of the entrance to the Center Court because it was too painful to stand. The doctors kept giving him pain relieving injections. In the end, the very last game, lost to a certain Benjamin Becker from Merzig, was also a relief. It was over, an unprecedented tennis life, a career of extravagance, an adventurous journey.
Agassi, like Björn Borg or McEnroe before him, like Boris Becker with him and like Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal after him, was bigger than his sport itself. Since his first appearance at the US Open in August 1986, he hasn't left anyone cold, For a long, long time there was no man's land between ardent veneration and deep contempt. Before he received widespread recognition for his late performance offensive in the last years of his career, he was loved and scorned, admired and insulted - the Agassi who had once traveled as an advertising character with the slogan "Image is everything".
There was never just one Agassi. There were a lot of agassas. And there was, above all, an Agassi that you didn't even know before he literally spoke relentlessly openly about his life in his sensational biography "Open". And last but not least, he said he "hated" tennis, also because of the perpetual pressure to perform that his father Mike had put on him. There was another, even more shocking, revelation in that book, namely that Agassi had illegally pumped himself with crystal meth in a deep life and tennis crisis to escape the sad reality of those days. The tennis authorities, it shimmered through, tried to cover up the scandal.
Wimbledon victory 1992: "hour when I became a tennis player"
Otherwise it never got boring with the guy from the glittering metropolis, the player hell Las Vegas. A man who had countless breaks in his career, who was full of contradictions, who wavered between being and appearing. And that's why it was so much more appealing than many of its straight-line, true-to-the-line colleagues, in particular Pete Sampras, the eternal spoiler of Agassis. It was thanks to his surprising Wimbledon success in 1992 that Agassi, who was basically a rather shy, doubtful guy, did not fail early on due to the toughness of the industry. "That was the hour when I was actually born a tennis player," says Agassi. To be more precise: It was the birth of the professional Agassi, who, for example, previously had the astonishing luxury of not playing at Wimbledon for a few years because of the dusty customs. Or who shied away from taking the too complex trip to Australia for the Grand Slam tournament there.
Later, Agassi won there, in Australia, most often in a career that went into an almost fabulous extension after the epic French Open victory in 1999 . Paris, the spring 21 years ago, it was the rebirth of Agassis, so to speak, after a crisis that had washed him up to 141st place in the world rankings and earned him descriptions like "Burger King of Tennis". After the Roland Garros triumph, he was suddenly number 1 again. And he was also this: Stefanie Graf's new partner, who was soon to become his wife, the mother of the two children Jaden Gil and Jaz Elle.
Agassi: from cult star to ascetic
Beyond his 30th birthday, he experienced a heyday, now with a shaved head, iron fitness, almost ascetic lifestyle. And with Ms. Graf at her side, who also helped him with some sporting advice. "We have great harmony and kinship," said Agassi at the time. Faded were the days when he went around the world as a bird of paradise and any pop star in the industry, as the protagonist of "Rebel Tennis", with blond hair, a shirt, and jeans . Boris Becker just recalled that shrill, loud, motley Agassi with the admission that he "could not do much" with him. Which was another huge understatement.
Becker, who needs the public like the moths the light, also said in his congratulatory address that he would like Agassi to be more present in tennis these days. This wish will not come true. Agassi will not be in the army of consultants, experts, or commentators in the future either. He owes a great deal to tennis. But he doesn't owe anything to tennis in any way.