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 How low can Agassi go?
Posted: Wed September 9, 1998
He's fluffy. He's fit. He's hirsute. He's bald. He's an image-is-everything iconoclast. He's a devout Christian. He's loves representing his country. He wouldn't play a Davis Cup match if it were held in his backyard. He's struggling with a ranking that has reached triple digits. He's the hottest player on tour and Pete Sampras's biggest rival. Just when we thought Andre Agassi couldn't reinvent himself anymore, he showed us a new incarnation at the U.S. Open: schoolyard bully. Like an outclassed prizefighter who is behind on the cards and, out of desperation, suddenly starts hitting below the belt, Agassi played dirty during his fourth- round match against Karol Kucera on Monday night. Down two sets to love and peeved that Kucera was catching his tosses before serving—which is perfectly legal—Agassi asked the umpire, Norm Chryst, "Can he do that on every point?" When the response, predictably, was yes, Agassi mocked Kucera and started catching toss after toss.
But for a while, anyway, the mind games worked. Kucera, clearly frazzled, began shanking balls all over the court, promptly dropped the third set and was trailing 0-3 in the fourth when rain interrupted play. "I didn't [catch my tosses] on purpose so it was unfair of Andre," said Kucera, a player who, by all accounts, is as mean-spirited as Bambi. "I couldn't concentrate on the game at all. So it was bad for me." When the two resumed play Tuesday afternoon, Agassi closed out the fourth set and was up 2-0, 40-15 in the fifth, seemingly running away with the match, when he took on yet another identity: tennis's approximation of Wild Bill Hickok. With Kucera reeling, Agassi inexplicably began overhitting routine shots and aspiring for ridiculous angles that invariably ended up in the net. Making the most of his reprieve, Kucera steadied his game, returned masterfully, and emerged with a 6-3, 6-3, 6-7, 1-6, 6-3 victory that took him more than 22 hours to earn. "What a strange, tough match," said Kucera, who now plays Sampras in the quarterfinals. As for Agassi, despite pulling his ranking up more than 100 spots, he'll remember 1998 as the year in which he didn't make it to the quarterfinals of a single Grand Slam event. "By my normal standards, it's certainly been a bad year," he said. "But I'm definitely going to go into next year believing I not only can, but should, win these tournaments." Meanwhile, that ought to leave him plenty of time to work on his moonballs. VOLLEYS: Though Goran Ivanisevic's gunslinging lefty serve might be the most potent in the game, Patrick Rafter finished with two more aces (11- 9) in their fourth-round match. Not surprisingly, Rafter won fairly handily, 6- 3, 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 ... Next up for Rafter, his doubles partner, Jonas Bjorkman, who beat Jan Siemerink in four sets ... Swedish tennis fans often lament that no one has filled the vacuum left by Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg. But three of their countrymen, Magnus Larsson, Bjorkman and Thomas Johnasson have advanced to the quarterfinals ... Martina Hingis's mother, Melanie Molitor, will coach the Swiss Fed Cup team that will play Spain for the 1998 title later this month.
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