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 | | You are in: In Depth: Wimbledon 2001 |
| |  Tuesday, 3 July, 2001, 18:01 GMT 19:01 UK Agassi eyes second success  Second coming: Agassi is looking good By BBC Sport Online's Claire Stocks at Wimbledon He is now the clear favourite to win this year's men's singles title at Wimbledon. But in all the hullabaloo over Pete Sampras' reign, now over, and the young challengers out to gun him down, his name has hardly been mentioned. Andre Agassi's progress to the quarter-finals has been almost regal. The likes of Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt have sent sparks flying in their bright, albeit brief, Centre Court adventures. Big-serving Goran Ivanisevic's comeback from the tennis wilderness, together with his engaging post-match interviews which resemble a session in the psychiatrist's chair, has provided another diversion.
Swiss teenager Roger Federer was the young man who finally deposed Sampras. And while the British press has proclaimed his exit as "Henman's best chance" of ending the country's Wimbledon title drought, it is surely Agassi who will benefit the most. Suddenly his path to the title seems remarkably clear. So is his mind. With his incredible brown eyes blazing with quiet intensity, Agassi holds court. His detached insight into what it takes to win is almost zen-like.
"Any match is in the control of two guys and two guys only," says Agassi. "Regardless of what's on paper or any other circumstances, you have to beat someone else. "It's a sport where one person can affect another. You're not just trying to shoot a low score, you're going out there to try and beat somebody. "In some cases you want to elevate your game to do that, in other cases you want to try and bring a guy's game down. "It's easy to hit the ball in practice. But if you haven't won before, or it's been a long time since you've had that feeling of momentum and confidence, you can forget how to execute at the right time."
It is one of Agassi's strongest qualities - his street-fighting philosophy. He is expected to make light work of Nicolas Escude, as 24th seed the worst ranked player left in the draw, in the quarter-final. Agassi will then face either Thomas Enqvist or Pat Rafter, who beat him in a five-set thriller in the semis last year, for a place in the final. By then he is hoping Ivanisevic, with his 130mph serve, has come a cropper. But even if he hasn't, Agassi, as one of the best returners in the game, is one of the few players who could subdue the Croat. When he burst onto the tennis scene as an 18-year-old in 1988, he climbed from 166th in the world to number six in the biggest one-year jump in ATP history. He went on to win Wimbledon in 1992, his first Grand Slam victory.
But though he has since won the US and Australian Opens twice and the French Open in Paris, he has never repeated his success at SW19. While his great rival Sampras' dominated like no other, Agassi remained in the shade. On the one ocassion Agassi made it to the final, in 1999, he came up against Sampras and lost in straight sets. But the Las Vegan is not bitter, he is both grateful and inspired by his fellow American. "In many ways he has been a thorn in my side, but in others he has brought out some of the tennis I have only dreamt about playing. "We've had matches that have really been a credit to the game of tennis. "I think as great a career as you could have, it would still be missing something if you did not have that complete antithesis that pushes you further." Now 31, Agassi must step alone into the void left by Sampras, for he knows he may never get another chance. | |
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