Andre Agassi

Andre Kirk Agassi (born April 29 1970, in Las
Vegas, Nevada) is a former World
No. 1 professional tennis player from the United
States. During his career, he has won eight Grand
Slam (tennis)|Grand Slam singles titles. He is one
of only five players in tennis history to have won
the men's singles titles at all four of the Grand
Slam events over the course of his career.

==Background==
Agassi, whose father is half Armenian
people and half Assyrian, was born and
raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, and lives there when
not on tour. His father, Emmanuel "Mike" Agassi,
was a boxing|boxer for Iran at the 1948 and 1952
Olympic Games, before emigrating to the United
States.

Mike Agassi was a tennis fanatic and was
determined to turn at least one of his four
children into a world-class player. He hung tennis
balls over Andre's crib and gave him a full-sized
racket at age two. Growing up, Andre and his
siblings would hit 3,000 balls a day, seven days a
week. Mike had Andre practice with Ilie Nastase
and Jimmy Connors. Andre's sister, Rita, finally
rebelled and moved in with, and later married,
tennis great Pancho Gonzales (their son, Skylar,
played on Bishop-Gorman High School's tennis
team). When he was 14, Andre was enrolled in the
Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida. Nick
Bollettieri would be Agassi's coach through July
1993.

==Tennis career==
Agassi turned professional in 1986 at the age of
16, and won his first top-level singles title in
1987 at Itaparica. He won six further tournaments
in 1988, and by December that year he had
surpassed US$2 million in career prize money after
playing in just 43 tournaments – the
quickest player in history to do so.

Agassi quickly developed a reputation on the tour
for exceptional fitness and conditioning, allowing
him to outlast most players over the course of a
long match, even the best counterpunchers. He
typically employs a baseline style of play,
however he often makes contact with the ball
inside the baseline (unlike most baseliners, who
make 4-8 feet behind the baseline their home). His
serve is not the fastest on the tour, but has very
good placement. His return-of-serve is his
strongest weapon. Many observers agree that Agassi
is the best service returner in the history of
professional tennis. He was the target of one of
the fastest serves on record – a 149-mph
(240 km/h) blast from Andy Roddick – and
returned it into play.

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 1990s with a series of
near-misses. He reached his first Grand Slam final
in 1990 at the French Open, where he lost in four
sets to the seasoned veteran player Andres
Gomez. Later that year he lost in the final of
the U.S. Open (tennis)|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 1991, 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.

Agassi chose not to play at Wimbledon
Championships|Wimbledon from 1988-90, 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 1991, 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 1992 when he
beat Goran Ivanisevic in a
tight five-set final.

Following wrist surgery in 1993, Agassi came back
strongly in 1994 and captured the US Open, beating
Michael Stich in the final. He then captured his
first Australian Open title in 1995, beating
Sampras in a four-set final. He won a career-high
seven titles that year and he reached the World
No. 1 ranking for the first time that April. He
held it for 30 weeks on that occasion through to
November. He compiled a career-best 26-match
winning streak during the summer hardcourt
circuit, which ended when he lost in the US Open
final to Sampras. In 1996, Agassi won the men's
singles Gold Medal at the Olympic Games in
Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta, beating Sergi Bruguera
of Spain in straight sets in the final.

1997 was a poor year for Agassi. He won no
top-level titles and his ranking sank to World No.
141 in November. His form was perhaps affected by
the intense publicity surrounding his high-profile
and turbulent relationship and marriage to actress
Brooke Shields. Following this, he made a decision
to rededicate himself to tennis. He shaved his
balding head, began a rigorous conditioning
program, and worked his way back up the rankings
by playing in Challenger Series tournaments (a
circuit for professional players ranked outside
the world's top 50). Perhaps most remarkably, the
one-time rebel emerged as a gracious and
thoughtful athlete, and looked up to by younger
players. After winning matches, he took to bowing
and blowing a two-handed kisses to spectators on
each side of the court, a gesture seen as a rather
humble acknowledgment of their support for him and
for tennis.

In 1998, Agassi won five titles and lept from No.
122 on the rankings at the start of the year, to
No. 6 at the end of it, making it the highest jump
into the Top 10 made by any player in tennis. He
won five titles in ten finals, and finished
runner-up at the Miami Masters.

Agassi entered the history books in 1999 when he
beat Andrei Medvedev in a five-set French Open
final to become only the fifth male player to have
won all four Grand Slam singles titles (a feat
last achieved in the 1960s by Roy Emerson). He
followed that up by reaching the Wimbledon final,
where he lost to Sampras. He then won the US Open,
beating Todd Martin in five sets in the final, and
finished the year ranked the World No. 1.

Agassi began 2000 by capturing his second
Australian Open title, beating Yevgeny Kafelnikov
in a four-set final. He was the first male player
to have reached four consecutive Grand Slam finals
since Rod Laver achieved the Grand Slam in 1969.
2000 also saw Agassi reach the semi-finals at
Wimbledon, where he lost in five sets to Patrick
Rafter in a very high quality battle considered by
many to be one of the best matches ever played at
Wimbledon.

Agassi entered the year-end
Tennis Masters Cup locked in a tight fight for the
World No. 1 spot with Gustavo Kuerten and Marat
Safin. Safin needed only three match wins in the
tournament to become the year end number one.
However, Safin lost to Agassi in the semi-finals;
Safin only won two matches. He was out of the
running. Agassi then met Kuerten in the final,
which would determine not only who would win the
title but also who would finish the year as the
No. 1 player. In the end it was Kuerten who
emereged victorious with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 score.
(Agassi won the tour's year-end championship once
in 1990, and was runner-up in 1999, 2000 and
2003.)

Agassi opened 2001 by sucessfully defending his
Australian Open title with a straight-sets final
win over Arnaud Clement. At Wimbledon, he battled
Rafter again in the semi-finals and lost 8-6 in
the fifth set. At the US Open he lost in the
quarter-finals to Sampras in what is conisdered to
be one of tournament's all-time greatest matches.
Sampras won 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 7-6 in a match with no
breaks of serve.

Agassi and Sampras' last duel came in the final of
the US Open in 2002. The battle between the two
veterans saw Sampras emerge victorious in four
sets, and left Sampras with a 20-14 edge in their
34 career meetings. (The match in fact proved to
be the last of Sampras' career. He did not play in
an event on the professional tour again, and
officially announced his retirement in 2003.)
Agassi's US Open finish, along with his victories
at the Miami Masters, Rome Masters, and Madrid
Masters, helped him become the oldest year-end No.
2 at 32 years and 8 months.

In 2003, Agassi won the eighth Grand Slam title of
his career at the Australian Open.
On May 11, Agassi won the U.S. Men's Clay Court
Championships in Houston, making him the oldest
No. 1 ranked male tennis player in history at 33
years and 13 days. He would hold the position for
13 weeks. At the Tennis Masters Cup in Houston,
Agassi made it to the final, losing to Roger
Federer, making him the oldest player to ever
finish the year in the Top 5 (fourth) since Jimmy
Connors finished fourth in 1987 when he was 35.

In 2004, the 34-year-old Agassi won the Tennis
Masters Series event at Cincinnati to bring his
career total to 59 top-level singles titles. With
strong finishes at the Australian Open (SF),
Indian Wells Masters (SF), Cincinnati Masters
(WON), US Open (QF), Madrid Masters (SF) and
Stockholm Open (F), Agassi finished the year
ranked eighth, making him the oldest player to
finish the year in the Top 10 (at age 34) since
Jimmy Connors finished seventh in 1988 when he was
36.

Agassi has also won one doubles title (at
Cincinnati in 1993, partnering Petr Korda). He is
one of only five male players to have won all the
Grand Slams – along with legends Don Budge,
Roy Emerson, Rod Laver and Fred Perry. He is in
fact the first male tennis player to win the four
Grand Slams on four different surfaces. The
previous players won the Australian Open,
Wimbledon, and the US Open on grass courts and the
French Open on clay courts; whereas Agassi won the
Australian Open on Rebound Ace, the French Open on
clay, Wimbledon on grass, and the US Open on
hardcourts. By winning the Olympic Gold Medal at
the 1996 Olympics, Agassi became the first male
tennis player to win the Career Golden Slam.
Agassi also helped the United States win the Davis
Cup in 1990 and 1992. He was named the BBC Sports
Personality of the Year Overseas Personality|BBC
Overseas Sports Personality of the Year in 1992.
Agassi has earned over US$25 million in
prize-money throughout his career, second only to
Sampras. In addition to this, he also earns over
US$25 million a year through endorsements, the
most by any tennis player and fourth in all sports
(first place is Tiger Woods at US$70 million a
year). In 2005, Agassi left Nike after 17 years
and signed an endorsement deal with Adidas.

==Personal and family life==
After a four-year courtship, Agassi married
actress Brooke Shields in a lavish ceremony on
April 19 1997. That February, they had filed suit
against The National Enquirer claiming it printed
"false and fabricated" statements: Brooke was
undergoing counseling, binge-eating and taking
pills; Agassi "lashed into" Brooke and he and
Brooke's mother "tangled like wildcats" when she
demanded a prenuptial agreement|prenup. The case
was dismissed, but the headlines were indicative
of the union. Agassi filed for divorce, which was
granted on April 9, 1999.

By the time the divorce was final, Agassi was
dating the German tennis legend Steffi Graf. With
only their mothers as witnesses, they were married
at his home on October 22 2001. Their son, Jaden
Gil, was born 6 weeks prematurely on October 26
that year. Their daughter, Jaz Elle, was born on
October 3 2003.